Wiki-This, Wiki-That....Wiki-What?!

Wikipedia is a website that allows one to search almost everything known on Earth. From what is the plot line of the Game of Thrones series to what political party won in the Cambodian Presidential Election in 1972.  The upside of Wikipedia, as well as its downside is that users are allowed to edit articles found on the website. In some instances, especially for research this is a beneficial aspect; leaving room for the most current information on any given topic. However, the addition of information does not entail that the information came from citable sources, or even that the statements were correct.

Entire Animal Wiki Stub

The search for a stub, or an article lacking serious content and citations as Wikipedia calls it, was more of a challenge than I had originally anticipated. At first I thought I would just be able to search for something that I knew about pertaining to school, for example, Hardware disease in cattle. It wasn't until actually looking at the stubs that needed some assistance did I fully realize that I knew nothing about anything on the stubs list. After searching the lists under "An" for Animal,"Zo" for Zoology....but alas no topics that I could use for this assignment. It wasn't until I was aimlessly browsing did I find a stub that had a couple paragraphs of information, which looked to be almost complete, did I find that the information was misleading and for the most part incorrect. At last! Something I could edit for this assignment, and increase the reliability of this one article.  My article of "Entire Animal" is about the pros and cons of leaving animals intact, meaning they are not spayed or neutered. The information I found for this article was properly cited and highlighted the advantages and disadvantages for the procedures in both large and small animals.

Overall I really see the benefit to doing this assignment. Rating the reliability of information, especially found on the internet will not only benefit me on a personal level, but researching information for a school assignment will be much easier. Using Wikipedia as only a last resource of information, and instead looking at the citations within the article to find information will be a change from how I was researching before. Caitlin also shares similar experiences and woes in her blog as she tried to find information on the coffin bone in horses.