Introduction
Like everyone else I used Wikipedia a lot, but this time I could experience the project from the other side by writing an own article. I edited a Wikipedia article about my father who is also a known artist in the south of Germany. On the one hand it met the course’s requirements as a social-scientific topic and on the other hand I had access to a lot of material, which I could use for the article. Moreover, the artist could improve his public relations and increase his value at the art market. Continue reading “My first Wikipedia article”
Getting Familiar with Wikipedia: Scientific Value or Just Warm Words?
How to use Wikipedia?
Nowadays everyone knows Wikipedia (WP). It is the reference point for gathering quick information about almost any topic we can imagine. Wikipedia provides information about topics from A to Z to its users, no matter if scientific or about an everyday life topic. Almost every topic that is considered relevant for public interest is covered by a WP article. When looking up a certain topic on Google, the first information you get is most often from Wikipedia. Therefore, it may be claimed that Wikipedia offers the biggest pooled collection of information that is available in today’s world. However, despite the fact that there is no broader collection of knowledge than Wikipedia, we apparently perceive limits of relevance. For everyday use, WP may be the best device of finding the information we search. But does this hold true for scientific research as well? Can the information provided on WP be in fact a reliable source for academic purposes? Continue reading “Getting Familiar with Wikipedia: Scientific Value or Just Warm Words?”
Comparison between the German and English Wikipedia article of “The Blair Witch Project”
1. Introduction
The Wikipedia articles are about an American horror film produced in 1999. In the movie there are three student filmmakers, who are trying to get some evidence of the mysterious Blair Witch. They plan a camping trip to the Black Hills, where they are filming the documentary movie. During the whole movie, the witch can not be seen, but a lot of mysterious things happen. The film ends with the camera being dropped. So it is an open end, where every viewer can imagine his or her own end. Now I am going to make a comparison between the German Wikipedia article and the English one. It is focused on the differences in content and form. Continue reading “Comparison between the German and English Wikipedia article of “The Blair Witch Project””
Wikipedia and Me
Wikipedia. The largest online encyclopedia with countless articles in a quantity of languages. How can one find an article that does not exist already? As you can see the first task our instructor, Miss Baillot, gave us was already the most difficult one. It certainly took quite a while to find an appropriate article to write. I chose to write a completely new article about “My Son the Fanatic” by Hanif Kureishi on the German Wikipedia platform. Continue reading “Wikipedia and Me”
Becoming part of the Wikipedia family
Writing my first own Wikipedia article
First Thoughts and Preparation
When it came to writing my first Wikipedia article, the first question was the subject it should be about. Our requirement was to choose a topic which had to be relevant, liberal arts oriented and there had to be enough literature about it. That led me to check the core principles of Wikipedia again, where notability and verifiability are two important points. For my article I chose the theme of a seminar paper I wrote a semester before, which is a poem of the famous German poet Eduard Mörike: “Der alte Turmhahn”. Due to the German content, I wrote my article in German. Checking the relevance, I had a look at the parent page of Eduard Mörike, where the most important works are listed. “Der alte Turmhahn” was mentioned but not further described and therefore I wanted to fill this gap. To verify my words I needed both primary and secondary literature.
Experiencing Wikipedia from the other Side
When I had first started the class of “Wikipedia and the Humanities” I viewed Wikipedia more as an easy-search, easy-access lexicon without thinking much about how the entire system behind it works. After a semester spent learning about the history and intricacies of Wikipedia, taking a closer look at the guidelines for writing and in the end of the course becoming a published author on Wikipedia myself, my opinions on the open web lexica have changed drastically.
Continue reading “Experiencing Wikipedia from the other Side”