Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Wiki Entry

This week for our ALES 204 course, we were asked to add to a Wikipedia "stub" page using our knowledge of specific subject areas, as well as what resources we could find. I have chosen to work on the stub "Life course approach", which can be found here. I chose to add to the stub about the Life Course Approach because it is a very prevalent theoretical framework that is often used in human ecological practices. As a human ecologist, you are required to look at many aspects of one person's life simultaneously - which is parallel to the Life Course Approach that looks at the structural, social, and individual aspects of one's life.










Screen capture of my Wikipedia entry about Life Course Appoach. Screen capture from:
Susan Nielsen, personal collection. Original article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_course_approach, Accessed Mar. 23, 2012.

Wikipedia is a great source of information; it is often called the "online encyclopedia" and is known for giving very general information to anyone who is interested in looking. Although, it is very important to consider that the information on Wikipedia can be edited and posted by anyone from around the world who has a Wikipedia username. Throughout this assignment, I have realized how easy it truly is for anyone to post on Wikipedia. For example: everyone in our class was able to successfully add to a stub on Wikipedia about any subject that they wanted to, even though no one in our class is well qualified in the subject areas (most of us do not even have a degree yet). Therefore, when looking at and searching information on the Wikipedia website, we need to think critically about the information that is being presented and not accept everything as being fact. The information from Wikipedia may not be reliable, as well, it may not be valid. This has also been noted by Clara Tran in her ALES 204 wiki blog post.
Overall, Wikipedia is a great source of information for anyone interested in doing a quick search for information that is not going to be used for scholarly purposes - such as: looking up who the 5th prime minister was, or what breed of dog to adopt. As well, Wikipedia is a great social media tool for people around the world with mutual interests to share their ideas with the world through the use of this online encyclopedia.

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2 comments:

  1. Clara TMarch 23, 2012 at 10:26 AM

    Hi Susan!

    I really like how you explored the issue of reliability when using Wikipedia as a source of information. Even when there are a number of individuals contributing to a single article, the reliability of the references that are used still have to be considered. As such, I definitely agree that Wikipedia is great for quick searches that might be out of personal interest or quick reference, but maybe not for research papers or anything that requires the highest degree of reliability.

    Great post, Susan! Just based on the screen shots, it looks like you did a lot of work with that stub.

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  2. Rebecca SMarch 26, 2012 at 9:39 AM

    Hey Susan,

    I really like the way that you have argued that Wikipedia as a social media tool. It is something that I have never considered before, even with taking this class on communications. Rather than looking at the online encyclopedia as something that it set in stone, it really is a method of sharing information. just like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging. Although it has to be read critically, it provides a good basis for so many different topics. Thanks for your great article on the life course and blog post!

    -Rebecca

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