Wikipedia Analysis Paper

Sarah Halverson

Professor Michael Cavey

June 29, 2017

Wikipedia Analysis Paper

The accuracy of the sources placed in the “References” section in the Wikipedia page about Leonardo Da Vinci seem to be whole, as the sources are derived from journalistic papers, historian editorials, books written about him, and even primary, first-hand sources of Da Vinci; seemingly absent after analyzing these sources is irrefutable information. While diagnosing the changes that have occurred on the Wikipedia page, almost all of them seem to be linguistic and typographical errors, not any changes that will affect the accuracy of the page. Minor changes occurred as well, such as the addition of images and removal of irrelevant sources and information that is linked to it. To further the research, it was backed up to years of editing and all entries made were either by Wikipedia staff or approved by Wikipedia staff. To every addition, a Wikipedia staffer approved it and commented on why the change was happening. Typographical errors were not administered nor approved by Wikipedia. The identities of these individuals is not known and are only assumed to be good Samaritans, fixing a mistake they saw. A noticeable change that kept occurring is the removal of information. As this information was added, it was removed within 48 hours by either another member or a staff for either its inaccuracies, lack of sources, or poor extrapolation of the original text.

While this information was mostly accurate, it provided a difference between it and the information on Encyclopedia Britannica. For example, the information on Encyclopedia Britannica was more direct, seemed to be professionally written, and didn't have any irrelevant information. While the information on Wikipedia was accurate as well, it did have parts of it that were repeated, dragged on, or unnecessarily added altogether. Some parts of Encyclopedia Britannica were entirely not included in the Wikipedia page, while the Wikipedia page had only irrelevant things not included in EB. Overall, both sources accomplished their goal of being as accurate as it can be for informational websites.

Generally, Wikipedia can be trusted to be a reasonably accurate website, and if the information sought is not available, it can be most likely found in one of the citations that Wikipedia provided. Most helpful in Wikipedia, however, is the structure. It was entirely too hard to find information on Encyclopedia Britannica without looking up key words;  contrasted to Wikipedia which was very structured and was very easy to find any sort of information on any part of the page. In addition, Wikipedia provides hyperlinks to relevant words in case further research was needed, while Encyclopedia Britannica does that poorly. For example, in Leonardo Da Vinci’s page, under “personal life”, much information can be sourced and information such as birthplace can be found and hyperlinked to an article about the city. This is very useful in case it was needed to find a specific item that needed explanation beyond the original page, while Encyclopedia Britannica lack that same usefulness in the same way. While navigating through Wikipedia, it seemed obvious where the most filled pages were: the recent ones and popular ones. For example, Da Vinci’s page hyperlinks to the term “hydrodynamics” (as he is credited with the concept), and the page for that term is incredibly long and descriptive; on the other hand, a hyperlink for “Out-Of-Wedlock” seemed to be brief. The idea of hydrodynamics in this case is important and has been newly mastered in new ways, therefore the page is full of information, unlike out of wedlock. Additionally, a page linking to “The Last Supper” was also jam packed with information because of the general popularity of that page.