Final Draft Wikipedia Paper

Brittany Brinegar

Mr. Roberts

AP lit/comp

November 2, 2011

Is Wikipedia a reliable resource for us today? No, It’s not because when we use Wikipedia to do research on certain topics we can’t distinguish what’s true and what’s not. Jimmy Wales says “we have constant problems where we have people who are trying to repeatedly abuse our sites," Wales also said, “He was trying to make Wikipedia less vulnerable to tampering. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are going to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users.” So, I say no, because of the research I have done on Wikipedia. I have found out some pretty interesting things about Wikipedia and how it affects us in today’s society.

Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia in 2001 with Larry Sanger. "Wikipedia was the outgrowth of an online encyclopedia project, it was meant to hew to the traditional model — experts write the articles, and reviewers examine what they produce." "It was aided by being mentioned on the influential technology news site, Slashdot, Wikipedia quickly grew, and a new mousetrap was discovered." The new mousetrap today is that more and more people are getting sucked in to use Wikipedia because it’s the first thing that pops up after you hit the “enter” key. The reason people call it “The New Mousetrap” is because like a mousetrap it snaps when a mouse tries and grabs the piece of cheese. Wikipedia does by luring them in and then snapping it shut so they can’t get free. "In its first year, which was in 2001 Wikipedia has grown to more than 20,000 articles in 18 languages."

Wikipedia is not a reliable resource because the founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales says; “he wants to get the message out to college students that they shouldn’t use it for class projects or serious research.” It’s not that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source for information it just as Wales quotes, “It’s good enough knowledge, depending on what your purpose is.” If that’s true then why would they have created the website in first place? Wales said,” The idea was that we could create a free encyclopedia for everybody.”  I believe Mr. Wales had good intentions towards us by making the encyclopedia free, but it backfired on him and now his regretting what he has created. Newton’s third law states, “That for every action there is an opposite equal reaction.” I think Mr. Wales intended to help us with all his heart he knew he had a mission and was going to succeed in it no matter the outcome what I don’t think he realized was that even though he created this world wide phenomenon that people use in their everyday lives he really didn’t think about the consequences of his actions and how they would affect us. Jimmy Wales wasn’t looking to become rich he just thought that he would create a website were people could look up true, reliable information. We can’t punish him for this one mistake after all everybody makes mistakes in their lives whether or not we like it it’s not for us to judge him based on this one mistake he made in his life, but all we can do though is hope that he has learned from his mistake and not do it again that’s really all we can ask of him. So I say Wikipedia is not always reliable there are other sources of information not just Wikipedia.
                                                    Works Cited

Burrell, Clay. Wikipedia: "Wikipedia is not a Reliable Source". 3 January 2010. November 9 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History>.

Contributors, Wikipedia. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/wikipedia-founder-discourages-academic-use-of-his-creation/2305

15 August 2011. 9 November 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History>.

Elaine. Is Wikipedia a Reliable Resource? 25 March 2007. 9 November 2011 <http://mgmt339.wordpress.com/2007/03/25/158/>.

Jaschick, Scott. http://mixergy.com/wikipedias-founder-jimmy-wales/

 . 26 January 2007. 9 November 2011 <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki>.

Literature, AP. GWE. September 2011. 9 November 2011 <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&key=0Avh_W2An_wVRdFdMSnFpbW5lSkR4ejVsQWRobnFfdWc&hl=en_US&gid=0>.

Frankenstein Web Quest

Task 1

A monster can be described as a thing that is not entirely human. They are creatures that should not have come into this world by mad scientists. The monster is a thing made up of different things fused together to make one terrifying, ugly looking thing.

Task 2

The image of the monster on the left side looks more like a human than a terrifying monster, but in the image of the right looks more like a monster with his big head and the surgical scars of the arms. The backgrounds on both pictures are extremely different one looks like a laboratory the other looks like a dungeon. When you put the two pictures together you see that they were made in different time periods what was then is different from now.

Task 3

Many of the scientists wanted to make their country a better, safer place to live without having to look over their shoulder. During war people were making atomic bombs so they could defeat the other team, but the scientists who had insinuated and help build these weapons that they made a make and realize that they have done wrong so for making up for this they established a committee called the Emergency Committee of Atomic Bombs and this committee is still here today.

Task 4

The real monster in the book “Frankenstein” would have to be Dr. Frankenstein himself because I believe that the monster he created was a mistake because he thought he was God and bring back the dead, but what he got was not at all what he expected.  Scientists such as Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, and Joseph they were much like Frankenstein because they believed they could change the world they set their mind to do something and nothing was going to stop no matter the cost.

During the years and after WWII scientists were racing with their peers of other countries. Scientists though Germans would develop a deadly weapon before the United States and Britain could.  They had rush in order to ensure the success of the allies, but their consequences were not in full. If these men had known what destruction this would cause they wouldn’t have taken any part in it.

A weapon can never be used the way it was developed as a weapon. Now the scientists are trying to solve a problem they sparked without thinking of the consequences. Despite all their beliefs and actions, these men are to be held responsible because they’re the ones who created the situation were in now.

Men typically drool at the idea of creation, but in the end they hate what they have created.  For the rest of their lives, they will fight against what they’ve created; however, they will never be rid of the title of monster.

2nd Draft Research Paper

Brittany Brinegar

Mr. Roberts

AP lit/comp

November 2, 2011

Is Wikipedia a reliable resource for us today? No, It’s not because when we use Wikipedia to do research on certain topics we can’t distinguish what’s true and what’s not. Jimmy Wales says “we have constant problems where we have people who are trying to repeatedly abuse our sites," Wales also said, “He was trying to make Wikipedia less vulnerable to tampering. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are going to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users.” So, I say no, because of the research I have done on Wikipedia. I have found out some pretty interesting things about Wikipedia and how it affects us in today’s society.

Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia in 2001 with Larry Sanger. "Wikipedia was the outgrowth of an online encyclopedia project, it was meant to hew to the traditional model — experts write the articles, and reviewers examine what they produce." "It was aided by being mentioned on the influential technology news site, Slashdot, Wikipedia quickly grew, and a new mousetrap was discovered." The new mousetrap today is that more and more people are getting sucked in to use Wikipedia because it’s the first thing that pops up after you hit the “enter” key. The reason people call it “The New Mousetrap” is because like a mousetrap it snaps when a mouse tries and grabs the piece of cheese. Wikipedia does by luring them in and then snapping it shut so they can’t get free. "In its first year, which was in 2001 Wikipedia has grown to more than 20,000 articles in 18 languages."

Wikipedia is not a reliable resource because the founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales says; “he wants to get the message out to college students that they shouldn’t use it for class projects or serious research.” It’s not that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source for information it just as Wales quotes, “It’s good enough knowledge, depending on what your purpose is.” If that’s true then why would they have created the website in first place? Wales said,” The idea was that we could create a free encyclopedia for everybody.”  I believe Mr. Wales had good intentions towards us by making the encyclopedia free, but it backfired on him and now his regretting what he has created. Newton’s third law states, “That for every action there is an opposite equal reaction.” I think Mr. Wales intended to help us with all his heart he knew he had a mission and was going to succeed in it no matter the outcome what I don’t think he realized was that even though he created this world wide phenomenon that people use in their everyday lives he really didn’t think about the consequences of his actions and how they would affect us. Jimmy Wales wasn’t looking to become rich he just thought that he would create a website were people could look up true, reliable information. We can’t punish him for this one mistake after all everybody makes mistakes in their lives whether or not we like it it’s not for us to judge him based on this one mistake he made in his life, but all we can do though is hope that he has learned from his mistake and not do it again that’s really all we can ask of him. So I say Wikipedia is not always reliable there are other sources of information not just Wikipedia.
                                                    Works Cited

Burrell, Clay. Wikipedia: "Wikipedia is not a Reliable Source". 3 January 2010. November 9 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History>.

Contributors, Wikipedia. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/wikipedia-founder-discourages-academic-use-of-his-creation/2305

15 August 2011. 9 November 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History>.

Elaine. Is Wikipedia a Reliable Resource? 25 March 2007. 9 November 2011 <http://mgmt339.wordpress.com/2007/03/25/158/>.

Jaschick, Scott. http://mixergy.com/wikipedias-founder-jimmy-wales/

 . 26 January 2007. 9 November 2011 <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki>.

Literature, AP. GWE. September 2011. 9 November 2011 <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&key=0Avh_W2An_wVRdFdMSnFpbW5lSkR4ejVsQWRobnFfdWc&hl=en_US&gid=0>.