Truthfully, all I have been reading lately is all texts for class. Recently, the most enjoyable one would be excerpts from the book Don Quixote. Even though it was done for a class, the excerpts were really interesting, and I have wanted to read the book for a while, so it was really nice to have an incentive to read it.
On my own time, what I read really depends on my mood. Once in a while, I would get into periods where I would only read one type/genre of books. Most of the time, it is a combination of reading books I have already read before, and hunting down new books that look interesting. Because of that, my list of favorites is really everywhere. One of the groups that I often reread is my childish/fantasy group of books (knights, kings, etc.). A couple of years ago, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Terrier by Tamora Pierce (since my birthday was closer, she got me a copy of the book, and borrowed it once I was done) which is still up on my favorites list. To this day, that book is still one of my favorites, and I am still waiting on getting my hands on the next book. . . whenever it comes out.
Over spring break, I will probably be rereading things from class to do projects and essays. So, I cannot really say that I am looking forward to read those (maybe I’ll try to get ahead on readings for other classes. . . although I highly doubt that I will do it). Perhaps I will try to get some fun reading into my schedule, not sure yet though.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Idea Draft
One of the first things I would like to do in the paper would be to identify what academic writing is (is it anything that a teacher/professor assigns, or can it be something that has to do with research? What traits are used to identify academic writing?). Perhaps definitions from a dictionary or something like that? I may have to drop the definition idea though, when I went to do a quick web search, a Wikipedia article came up, and one pdf file that I think is legit but have not read yet. To me, it would important to know what kind of writing the prompt is discussing. As I am reading more articles on the topic, for now my stance is this: while the articles in Wikipedia may not be all accurate, there is a potential for the website to be used as a source in academic writing in the future; and depending on what the topic of the paper Wikipedia can be a good source for students to use (to tell the truth, I am still not really sure about what stance to take, so the following will just be me rambling about different points I see so far).
So what makes a good source? What is a source? Another definition would work well in my next point, to define a source. Is a source only something we do a quote or paraphrase from? What about other article that we read about the topic but did not use directly (or at least consciously) in the paper? If sources only include things that we directly quote from, then the accuracy of the website would play a big role in whether or not Wikipedia should be allowed. But if a source is pretty much anything writers get ideas from, the technically Wikipedia could be included in the source list. Some people are saying that it could be a good place to start researching from, (like a stepping stone). If that is the case, (and depending on the definition) the Wikipedia should be allowed as a source. I cannot remember where, but it was stated somewhere, that an encyclopedia should not be cited as a source in college academic writhing to start with. . .
Wikipedia as an experiment. There are people who see Wikipedia as a silly world wide experiment. I actually wrote the paragraph generator paragraph on this point. I went with the fact that with everyone contributing in the articles, in the future, it is possible to make Wikipedia a legit source (kind of like the saying that goes something like one mind is not better than a bunch of minds, or something like that. . . ). I will probably post the paragraph up eventually, after some editing.
Wikipedia as a stepping stone. I am borrowing the idea that with the bibliography part of the article, students can get something similar to a ‘starting list’ of places to look. The research has to start somewhere, so this could be a good stepping stone for the actual paper, and more creditable sources.
What is the subject? While there are many teachers who do not want students to use Wikipedia, there are some who actually encourage their students to use it. What is the difference? Perhaps what the information is used for? I would venture a guess that science teachers may allow Wikipedia, because students are using it more as a rough guide to see if their results are similar to what is expected. Where language teachers, or even just professors in grad school would prefer students to just go out and search for the answers they are looking for.
How good are the people working on the project? In one of the articles about the ‘joke’ Wikipedia article pointed out that the original article was edited before the discrepancy was found. The editor only corrected a spelling mistake the original author made. That is one of the problems of giving anyone who has access to the internet to change the article.
Accuracy? A lot is being said about accuracy of the article, but I have been hearing and reading a lot about how Wikipedia can sometimes be more accurate than the published encyclopedias. One point I would make for that would be that only a selected committee edits an edition of published encyclopedias, where as there are more people looking over the same article (needing fresh eyes to catch more mistakes). I would think that there are more edits on Wikipedia than published editions, since those take so much more time.
Conspiracy? This thought just popped into my mind as I was thinking to finish up this draft. I am not saying that criticism is planted, but could some of it be that the published encyclopedias are losing money, and need to discredit Wikipedia to keep some revenue? Most people would not pay for the same or at least similar information that they can get for free. . . Well not that many people by encyclopedias to start with. . .
Yup, that will be my ramble this time. Now, I just need to take a stance and reorganize my points. You ok over there? Did I lose you somewhere in the middle?
So what makes a good source? What is a source? Another definition would work well in my next point, to define a source. Is a source only something we do a quote or paraphrase from? What about other article that we read about the topic but did not use directly (or at least consciously) in the paper? If sources only include things that we directly quote from, then the accuracy of the website would play a big role in whether or not Wikipedia should be allowed. But if a source is pretty much anything writers get ideas from, the technically Wikipedia could be included in the source list. Some people are saying that it could be a good place to start researching from, (like a stepping stone). If that is the case, (and depending on the definition) the Wikipedia should be allowed as a source. I cannot remember where, but it was stated somewhere, that an encyclopedia should not be cited as a source in college academic writhing to start with. . .
Wikipedia as an experiment. There are people who see Wikipedia as a silly world wide experiment. I actually wrote the paragraph generator paragraph on this point. I went with the fact that with everyone contributing in the articles, in the future, it is possible to make Wikipedia a legit source (kind of like the saying that goes something like one mind is not better than a bunch of minds, or something like that. . . ). I will probably post the paragraph up eventually, after some editing.
Wikipedia as a stepping stone. I am borrowing the idea that with the bibliography part of the article, students can get something similar to a ‘starting list’ of places to look. The research has to start somewhere, so this could be a good stepping stone for the actual paper, and more creditable sources.
What is the subject? While there are many teachers who do not want students to use Wikipedia, there are some who actually encourage their students to use it. What is the difference? Perhaps what the information is used for? I would venture a guess that science teachers may allow Wikipedia, because students are using it more as a rough guide to see if their results are similar to what is expected. Where language teachers, or even just professors in grad school would prefer students to just go out and search for the answers they are looking for.
How good are the people working on the project? In one of the articles about the ‘joke’ Wikipedia article pointed out that the original article was edited before the discrepancy was found. The editor only corrected a spelling mistake the original author made. That is one of the problems of giving anyone who has access to the internet to change the article.
Accuracy? A lot is being said about accuracy of the article, but I have been hearing and reading a lot about how Wikipedia can sometimes be more accurate than the published encyclopedias. One point I would make for that would be that only a selected committee edits an edition of published encyclopedias, where as there are more people looking over the same article (needing fresh eyes to catch more mistakes). I would think that there are more edits on Wikipedia than published editions, since those take so much more time.
Conspiracy? This thought just popped into my mind as I was thinking to finish up this draft. I am not saying that criticism is planted, but could some of it be that the published encyclopedias are losing money, and need to discredit Wikipedia to keep some revenue? Most people would not pay for the same or at least similar information that they can get for free. . . Well not that many people by encyclopedias to start with. . .
Yup, that will be my ramble this time. Now, I just need to take a stance and reorganize my points. You ok over there? Did I lose you somewhere in the middle?
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