Tutorial 6 Task

Wikipedia – the free (unreliable) encyclopedia!

When you type something into a search engine like Google, often, the first result is found on Wikipedia (the name being a combination of Wiki meaning “a type of collaborative website” and Encyclopedia). Due to this high position in the ranking of search results, uninformed internet users assume that it is an accurate, reliable and creditable source so they don’t bother to look any further to ensure the information they’re getting is real. People intending to use information they find on Wikipedia in important documents should be aware that Wikipedia is open to a large contributor base and allows anyone to edit what has been written. This means that the articles do not have to be written by an expert on the chosen topic, or even someone with any form of acknowledged study at all! Therefore, information is often unreliable and biased. However, Wikipedia does have certain programs designed to resolve these problems like the “editorial dispute resolution process” which allows people to discuss their knowledge and beliefs to try and determine a neutral agreement.

If you are a frequent Wikipedia user and would like to know more about its problems and faults, some interesting websites to look at are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Strengths.2C_weaknesses.2C_and_article_quality_in_Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great


After reading the above articles, I decided to search a few topics of interest to me to test out these theories and accusations of incorrect or misleading information, unreliability and bias. There I was, happily searching along, until I found Wikipedia’s article on my favourite supermodel of all time:

The first sentence of Wikipedia’s biography on this Australian beauty states, “Miranda May Kerr (born

20 April 1983 or 1985[1]) is an Australian model, best known as one of the Victoria's Secret Angels.” There are two main things wrong with this sentence. Firstly, there are two years given for her date of birth that are two years apart – two years makes a great difference! To set things straight, Miranda Kerr was born in 1983 which makes her 25 years of age this year. Secondly, the sentence continues to say, “Australian model, best known as one of the Victoria’s Secret Angels”, which is clearly a personal opinion. Objective description (where the writer is impersonal and factual) is the kind of description that should be used on Wikipedia. The phrase, “best known as” makes this article a subjective description because it includes the writer’s opinion and can be biased. Kerr is also well known as the face of swimwear label, “Seafolly”, and women’s clothing chain store, “Portmans”. She has also recently been selected as the new face of David Jones, which is a major career highlight that is not mentioned on Wikipedia.

Personally, I also believe that this article is missing a most important part of information that would be necessary for a completely uninformed reader to gain a substantial understanding of Miranda Kerr. The article tells of all of her accomplishments as a model, but it does not give any kind of description of what she looks like. When discussing someone in a modeling profession, I believe it is essential that the general aspects of their appearance (hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, body, height) is explained.

Having said this, I must add that Wikipedia is not always wrong, infact, in most cases it often has correct factual detail, and the best part about it is its quick and easy to use. Any piece of writing is going to be biased in some way, but the good thing about having a large contributor base is that many people get to have their say, and the majority can be heard. Apart from the Miranda Kerr article, when creeping around Wikipedia I found that almost every other topic I searched for had an accurate and useful result.

One article I thought was particularly helpful was on Burleigh Heads, QLD. If you search for our beautiful beach in Wikipedia it will give you a map, a paragraph that states specifically where the beach is situated, history of the area, a description of the scenery and links to articles about its landmarks and tourist information.

However, when using Wikipedia for research, although not every article has an obvious fault, there is always a possibility that the person who wrote it has got it wrong or written what they believe or want to beleive is true. Wikipedia is ok to read when informing yourself of a topic and attempting to broaden your understanding of it, but it is not recommended for using in academic writing. These days, there are endless sources we can gain information from, so why take a chance on Wikipedia?