From this course, I have learned to question the reliability and the credibility of all information that I have received. I have learned to wonder, who wrote what I am reading, have they been peer-reviewed, and whether the article I am reading is genuine. I've learned to question the information provided by websites, in which I find information provided by the American Veterinary Medical Association more reliable than information provided by Ilovemypets.com (A site I made up, but you get the point). I've also learned from this assignment, that perhaps I should take the information I receive from Wikipedia with some criticism and caution. In this assignment we were asked to update an incomplete article in Wikipedia. It was the first time that I have ever made a contribution to the site, and I had a hard time getting started and finding a stub that I felt I could really contribute to. I chose to write on the 'Human-Canine Bond'. I chose to update this article because I felt that I had a decent amount of knowledge on the human-animal bond after I had taken a course that taught me about it, plus the incomplete article looked like it was lacking information. My contributions to the article will hopefully be helpful, as I have added a section on history, further described the theories of human-animal bond and provided examples, and I added more to the introduction of the human-animal bond.
Here is the link to my Wikipedia Stub: Human-Canine Bond
This assignment took me longer than I had thought it would, as I spent a lot of my time reading journal articles and citing authentic sources for the information I was providing on Wikipedia. Although it took a lot of time and effort, I am very satisfied with the information that I have provided and I take pride in the fact that I have actually made a contribution to Wikipedia. This made me realize that although anyone can edit and contribute to Wikipedia, the most important thing is being able to provide authentic and reliable sources to back up the information that you are providing. The ability to cite your sources is the difference between being a contributor that just 'vandalizes' the article and a contributor that 'gardens' the article. At first when we started learning about Wikipedia, I assumed that perhaps everything on Wikipedia isn't necessarily true, but now I know that as long as there is a a credible, reliable source, I don't have to worry about trusting the information when I used it in my own writings. I feel that this student should understand this too, after reading her blog. Although she understands that Wikipedia is easy to change, I feel that she should also understand that Wikipedia goes through great lengths to be credible and reliable. And that as a reader, you should always criticize and look in to the sources being used.
I also find it helpful in trusting the reliability in Wikipedia with the fact that the site makes it easy to correct mistakes. That even though Wikipedia is very open to changes and contributions, it also has the capability to undo some changes that are harmful and inaccurate. I never knew that Wikipedia implemented patrolled revisions in which editors could mark edits as vandalism and check credentials. Hopefully with my post, the edits will find my credentials acceptable. Although I understand why professors always warn students that using Wikipedia isn't necessarily a reliable source for information, I like to think that Wikipedia uses information form sources such as journal article. Thus they too must be just as reliable as the sources used to back them up. There is a reason why Wikipedia has lasted for over ten years already.
