Writing for Wikipedia or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Coding

If you wrote it on Wikipedia though...

If you wrote it on Wikipedia though…

I have a new found respect for Wikipedia contributors. For our Wikipedia Creation, I decided to fill a void in the Wiki-verse. I am an intern with the David Mathews Center for Civic Life (not that Dave Matthews), and the 501(c)(3) organization is nowhere to be found on Wikipedia. I reviewed the DMC website and publications and honestly thought that I could just copy, paste, and cite right onto Wikipedia, and immediately see my polished new article. Wrong. Let me take you on a wildcard blog post journey through the steps of writing for Wikipedia. Continue reading

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My Wikipedia Edit

Originally, I had a difficult time trying to decide what to edit. I kept asking myself, “what do I know that others don’t”? (guess I’m not really an expert on anything). But the more I thought about it, I decided to edit the page for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital because I have worked with them a TON and figure I know a thing or two.

SJ1

When I first went to the page, at the top it says that the page has multiple issues and asking people to help improve it. The issues were: this article needs additional citations for verification and this article appears to be written like an advertisement.

I found this very interesting that they are working hard to ensure the credibility and objectivity of the information, yet we so often dismiss it as unworthy of our use in academic work.

Though most of the information was complete and all of it was accurate as far as I could tell, the fundraising section was missing many types of fundraising events and details about the events, how long they have been going on, who and what was involved, and how much they raised. I added in multiple sections and resources for those looking at the page to check out.

I orginially had trouble with the citations but it turned out I had deleted one symbol that I needed. Much to my suprise, I found the article very easy to edit and information about how to edit easy to locate.

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House of Cards Review *Spoiler Alert*

House of Cards is an Original Netflix Series

House of Cards is an Original Netflix Series

In the series, House of Cards, narrator and protagonist Frank Underwood plays a very strategic, albeit manipulative, House Whip for the Democratic Party. As viewers, we follow Frank’s life and watch him systematically take down every obstacle which stands between him and his rise to power. Ultimately, he hopes to become the president and indeed, in the last episode of the second season, he is sworn in as the President of the United States. Continue reading

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The Epistemological Quagmire of Wikipedia

I have never edited a Wikipedia article before, and after doing this once, I quickly realized that it’s a bad task for people who already have OCD tendencies to take up. Clearly, this should not be a hobby of mine.

jewish cemeteryI chose to edit the entry for Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael, the “prolific Dutch Golden Age landscape painter who lived between 1629-1682.” Why did I choose this article? I was trying to think about what I could edit that wasn’t liable to require too much work on my part. I had written several pages on a Ruisdael painting in my dissertation a few years ago, and somehow his name popped in my head. When I visited the page, I saw that it was relatively sparse, and I figured that I’d have something good to add. At the very least, I could cherry pick some citations and verbiage from my dissertation and plug them in. Continue reading

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Putting Brennan on the Map!

Justice Brennan

Justice Brennan

Currently, I’m in a constitutional law class. While doing research for various papers, I realized very few websites have taken the time to organize cases according to Supreme Court justices (e.g. which cases they wrote majority opinions, dissenting opinions, concurring opinions, etc.). I know Wikipedia is a good reference guide in that it can quickly familiarize you with a topic and point you in the right direction. Therefore, I decided to check out the Wikipedia page of my favorite justice, Justice Brennan, hoping it would tell me, at the very least, the cases in which he wrote the majority opinion. But alas! Wikipedia only mentioned his noteworthy quotes and provided no systematic way of revealing the cases in which he wrote any opinion. Thus, I decided to take it upon myself to start such a list by adding a chart denoting each case in which Justice Brennan wrote the majority opinion. You can check out the list here!

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Ten Thoughts You Have While Reading an Academic Journal Article

Here’s my Buzzfeed article!

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Recipes for Health Nuts

Check out my buzz feed article: 5 Recipes For Health Nut Sports Fanssmoky-corn-black-bean-pizza-th2

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To Cite or Not to Cite

Determining source credibility can be tricky!

In keeping with the theme of information dissemination, I thought it would be fun to look at some of the ways us “digital natives” immediately know a source isn’t reliable. For those of us who’ve been browsing the web since middle school looking for “reliable” sources, we have considerable experience sifting between the credible, the questionable, and the downright absurd. Yet to a digital immigrant, credibility red-flags may not be immediately apparent. As a digital native myself, I sometimes find myself questioning the validity of a website or article. Thus, I though it would be useful and also entertaining to look at “10 Signs Your Source Isn’t Credible.”

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Some Thoughts on Curation

Greetings all! I decided to dust off this old post from a previous course on curation to accompany our “readings” (actually listenings this week). We are listening to two radio/podcast clips: one from On The Media, and the other from NPRYou can listen to them here:

As you listen to these, think about what curation is. Is it original creation? Does it matter? Is curation something we all do? Now…on to the post from 2012.

I can’t think of a better starting place for a discussion about curation than this clip from IFC’s Portlandia.  This scene in Portland’s James John coffee house provides some great commentary about the challenges of being a critical thinker and consumer of information in the digital age (even though most of the publications mentioned in this argument are print-based.  More on that in a moment).  Here’s the clip.

The more I start thinking about this scene in tandem with our Curation Culture class, the more I realize that our class is essentially designed to help us figure out exactly what is being parodied here, why it’s funny, and what we can learn from it. Continue reading

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BuzzFeed Article: 9 Signs You’re a Soon-To-Be College Grad

Here is my Buzz Feed article! Very relevant to my life right now.

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