What is Wikipedia, and should it be a credible source for academic references? Wikipedia is a multilingual, web based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly-editable model. Wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning “quick.” Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous internet users. Anyone with internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related web pages with additional information.
Wikipedia and other sites called wikis are extremely controversial to cite or use as a reference in any school paper. Even the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has discouraged college students from quoting or citing Wikipedia in academic papers. At the same time, Jimmy encourages younger school students to cite Wikipedia as a source. Jimmy has also said that the website ”lacks the authority to be used as a citeable source for college-aged and university students”
Almost every Wikipedia entry has external links in the references section and a lot of these links actually point to credible sources that you can safely cite in your academic work. There is also a controlled version of Wikipedia that teachers can setup. Wikispaces are a controlled environment that teachers can control the information students can access. Because of the collaborative nature of wikis teachers can lock specific sections so other members cannot modify. Although to control a wikispace you must purchase a membership.
Wikipedia is great for finding general knowledge or a basic explanation. Wikipedia helps explain and provide a simple explanation, since you usually have the average joe providing the information. If a deeper and a more scientific explanation is necessary Wikipedia provides links to other more official research sites that most likely are researching the topic you are investigating. Wikipedia is a great start to finding reliable information in the area you are researching.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
"Complicated Solution"
Why are so many people uncomfortable with the idea that problems don’t have a single solution? One solution may not benefit everyone or anyone. Politics would have to be a perfect example of this, every law and bill or reform has supporters or opposition. And one of the hottest topics these days has to be healthcare reform, it’s on the tip of everybody’s tongue at least if you read the paper or watch the news because this effects everyone.
Republicans have a different view on how healthcare should be handled; they believe the democrats our ruining this country in leaps and bounds. There is a GOP website that tells you all about there healthcare reform ideas. As you should know republicans are outraged with spending this year sending our country deeper and deeper into debt. There plans are far from perfect to but it is near impossible to come up with a solution that is simple and clean cut.
Democrats on the other hand believe there stimulus plans are going to fix everything. You would of thought by now that educated men would have learned that you just can’t throw money at a problem and expect it to fix itself. The health care reform plans that the democrats have talked about include further taxing the wealthy and limits on out of pocket annual spending. It also includes government-funded health insurance options.
This would be my simple solution but thanks to tree huggers it’s not possible. There is 400 hundred billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With the price of oil at 100 dollars a barrel you do the math. If we could sell just a small percentage of this oil to countries like China or Russia we could pay off our country’s debt in no time. Now this may not be a direct fix for healthcare but it sure is a start.
When it comes to healthcare some people are worried about the price tag, while others talk about the percentage of uninsured and that is there only worry. Some people think that the government is just trying to take control of more and more of our economy’s infrastructure. This problem won’t have a single solution because we are not trying to accommodate one group of people. Maybe some questions have a simple one sentence answer like what I should eat or what kind of toothbrush should I buy because this problem is yours and yours only. For a more complicated problem like healthcare reform it cannot be answered by what you and I need but what the mass population needs. There are many groups of people to please from the elderly to the young and poor to the rich, and every group has different needs and problems. So the answer to something like this has to address everyone’s issues wich is impossible but you have to please as many people as possible while also stabilizing health care so that it can support itself in the long run.
Republicans have a different view on how healthcare should be handled; they believe the democrats our ruining this country in leaps and bounds. There is a GOP website that tells you all about there healthcare reform ideas. As you should know republicans are outraged with spending this year sending our country deeper and deeper into debt. There plans are far from perfect to but it is near impossible to come up with a solution that is simple and clean cut.
Democrats on the other hand believe there stimulus plans are going to fix everything. You would of thought by now that educated men would have learned that you just can’t throw money at a problem and expect it to fix itself. The health care reform plans that the democrats have talked about include further taxing the wealthy and limits on out of pocket annual spending. It also includes government-funded health insurance options.
This would be my simple solution but thanks to tree huggers it’s not possible. There is 400 hundred billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With the price of oil at 100 dollars a barrel you do the math. If we could sell just a small percentage of this oil to countries like China or Russia we could pay off our country’s debt in no time. Now this may not be a direct fix for healthcare but it sure is a start.
When it comes to healthcare some people are worried about the price tag, while others talk about the percentage of uninsured and that is there only worry. Some people think that the government is just trying to take control of more and more of our economy’s infrastructure. This problem won’t have a single solution because we are not trying to accommodate one group of people. Maybe some questions have a simple one sentence answer like what I should eat or what kind of toothbrush should I buy because this problem is yours and yours only. For a more complicated problem like healthcare reform it cannot be answered by what you and I need but what the mass population needs. There are many groups of people to please from the elderly to the young and poor to the rich, and every group has different needs and problems. So the answer to something like this has to address everyone’s issues wich is impossible but you have to please as many people as possible while also stabilizing health care so that it can support itself in the long run.
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