Reflection Essay

Throughout my life I have always thought of Wikipedia as a worthless website. I had been told by my teachers all through high school that any information from Wikipedia was not credible. However, I always find myself going to Wikipedia to look up information. Not that I used the information to cite sources in my research, I avoided Wikipedia for academic papers. I used Wikipedia in my free time to look up things of personal interest. I had always been aware that anyone could add information to Wikipedia, and questioned the authenticity of anything I read. I never had a real understanding of what Wikipedia was all about. The whole function of Wikipedia was unknown to me, until I learned more about it in English 308. My task was to edit an existing Wikipedia page. The first step was creating a Wikipedia account; this took only a few minutes. A Wikipedia account is needed to make edits to articles. I then added my user name to the course page on Wikipedia.

I then began looking for articles to edit. Many topics are already covered in great detail, making finding an article the most difficult part of the project. I thought for days about what I wanted to work on. I was going through start class articles, which are smaller articles related to a larger subject. An example of this would be sharks, and how a start class article would a specific type of shark. I have always had a strong interest in film. I typed my favorite movies into Wikipedia to see what information was available on them. Most of them had an ample amount of text already written. I then looked up the movie Fighting Back and saw only one sentence written about the movie. Being one of my favorite movies, I began my editing process and enjoyed it quite a bit. The research and writing was the easiest part of the edit. This was only true because I had been doing research papers all my life, making it routine. The difficult part was understanding the basic functions of Wikipedia. The sandbox was of great help in learning how to properly create links. To make edits on Wikipedia certain codes must be entered. The only real trouble I ran into was entering the references and cite pages. I had to watch some tutorial videos to understand more thoroughly how to do so. Wikipedia does a great job at explaining how to use its website.

Leading up to the due date for the edit we had read many passages from “Writing about Writing.” Many of which tie into Wikipedia. James E. Porter’s concept of intertextuality is very relevant to Wikipedia. Defined by Porter as “the idea that all texts contain traces of other texts and that there can be no text that does not draw on some ideas from some other texts” (86). In Wikipedia a large majority of the text comes from other sources. A great deal of research goes into writing the articles, which is shown by the references and cite pages listed at the bottom of the articles. Other people also add their own text to articles that have already been written. The process by which others can add and take away information from others articles makes Wikipedia a unique feature composed various portions of others work. “Examining texts intertextually means looking for traces, the bits and pieces of text which writing or speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse” (88). Various sources are used to bring information together on a single page, for a single article. Sub links in articles allow users to link themselves to other articles just by clicking the highlighted term. Each article on Wikipedia should contain some sub links, making the single article link and relate to many articles. Wikipedia would not be possible if done by a single person, it takes many contributions to make Wikipedia an effective tool. After several edits on a Wikipedia article traces of the original article will still remain. Porter uses the Declaration of Independence as an example. The original Declaration of Independence underwent many changes “actually the Declaration arose out of a cultural and rhetorical milieu, was composed of traces and was, in effect, team written” (90). The way Congress made edits to Jefferson original draft, relates to how people make edits to others original Wikipedia articles.

Articles written on Wikipedia are subject to review by discourse communities. “Some discourse communities are firmly established, such as the scientific community, medical profession, and the justice system” (92). If one were to write about a medical concept an editor knowledgeable in the medical field may review that article. The article may be deleted or edited if fails to meet their standards or lacks truthful information. Every article on Wikipedia may undergo an edit at any time, by any user. Whether the edit stays is up to the editors on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is a great search engine. Although not a credible source in an academic sense, Wikipedia can lead to credible information. The references and cite pages link the user to other pages on the topic. These links may lead to credible sources that can be used for academic papers. Once a person understands the function of Wikipedia it can be a very effective starting point for research papers. In the future I plan to use Wikipedia as a basic starting point for my research.