Wikipedia VS. Britannica

I have chosen to view the Chicago articles for this assignment, because I feel that it will provide me with more insight than my topic for "Hidden Jewels" will. I started out by looking at the history of the Chicago article and realized that just in the past two months it has been changed about 50 times. This is unbelievable, that people feel that they can just go in and change any of the information that they do not like in an article. In the Britannica article I was unable to find any changes that were made, maybe I was looking in the wrong places but it seemed to me that the Britannica article was a much cleaner version with less changes made, if any at all. The Wikipedia article does have a place where it is possible to contact a person that made corrections and speak to them about the items that they changed.

As I stated earlier the Wikipedia website was updated very recently, while I was unable to locate exactly when the Britannica article had been changed. The Britannica article did have a bibliography that I was able to click on at the bottom of the page; however, it did not take me anywhere. When I clicked on the Wikipedia bibliography however I was transferred to a page that showed me each one of the references that were used in the article and were a total of 81 references that were made. I thought that the Wikipedia article did contain much more information about where exactly their thoughts came from, because there was so much detail about the references. However, I also think that the reason that the Britannica article did not have many references is because it is an article that Britannica created themselves.

Both articles did contain links to other sights, and I did find this quite useful. I clicked on a few of the links that were located on the Britannica site and it took me to information about that word. In the article for example if it made reference to Lake Michigan I could simply click on Lake Michigan and then I would then be at another article that provided me with more information about the lake. I did find this helpful, however I would have liked for the website to take me to other sites and give me information that related to the topic I was still searching. The Wikipedia article did much of the same thing; however I noticed that at the very bottom of the article there were also some links to another website. This website was The City of Chicago website that provides people with a greater amount of information about the city itself. I am sure that once there it would be possible to find out more information that one is searching for. I think that both articles did provide adequate amounts of links; however I am not sure that I enjoyed the fact that the links only provided information about that word or words that were clicked on. It would have been nice to be able to view information about the topic that I was looking for at other sites as well.

I think that in my opinion the Britannica article elaborates on the topic much more extensively than the Wikipedia entry. I feel that the Wikipedia article does a good job of providing information however, there is much more detail within the 32 pages of Chicago article that Britannica provided. I think that in many ways I also feel biased toward the Wikipedia article though because I am aware of the fact that Wikipedia has so many people that change the contents of the article. I feel that Britannica has provided much information about Chicago and elaborated in much detail about each topic that they covered. While Wikipedia has missing information, I think that they touch on the overall point of each topic. However, there are important facts that are left out, and in some ways there are loop holes in their article.

When I clicked on the discussion tab of the Wikipedia article I found that there were comments from readers that simply explained what they thought of various sections of the article. Some of the comments dealt with what was wrong with the article while others spoke of what they liked and disliked about different subtopics. I thought that this was very informational and it really helped me to realize that other people have found some of the same problems with the article as I have. I think that this does help, because people are provided with an opportunity to express how they feel about information that was presented in the article. I think that this would be much more useful in people expressing their thoughts rather than making changes to the article without having any reason too. Simply changing the contents because they do not like what it says or the impression that it gives off. I was unable to find a spot in the Britannica article where people were commenting on the article and the thoughts they had about it. In many ways I think that this is a good idea, but I also feel that it is important that people be able to express their thoughts on certain topics.

I think that overall both sites are informative, however like I previous stated I am biased against the Wikipedia articles. I have never been allowed to use these articles as sources for papers because of the fact that people are able to make changes as they please. I think that this is why I favor the Britannica Online Encyclopedia. If I had to choose one, I would most definitely choose to use the Britannica article. I think that Wikipedia has it strengths like the ability to discuss the various problems that readers have with the article, but at the same time it also has its weaknesses, one being that the article can be changed at anytime by anyone. I think that Britannica does need more reader influence but overall the article contains much more in depth information and is something that I would enjoy reading much more than an article with quite so many holes, like Wikipedia.