Looking at all the stub possibilities was most definitely intimidating. Not only was there an A-Z subject option but Aa, Ab, Ac, etc. How was I going to narrow these down? Where should I begin? What topic area will provide me with the most relevant sources? Do I have any previous knowledge about any of these stubs? I clicked through a couple possibilities in hopes of discovering something related to my major (Clothing and Textiles) or more specifically my minor of Interior Design. Alas, I landed upon InStyle magazine, something that I am very familiar with and was relatively shocked to discover that there was so few points on the subject in its Wikipedia article. I was pleasantly surprised that such a famous magazine, with so many interesting things to speak of it, was available to me.
Editing the InStyle stub gave me an odd sense of importance ("MY words are going to be on Wikipedia?!") It was a much different feeling than the usual knowledge that likely only the professor, TA's or other classmates would be reading my work. But this only pushed me to make the article as relevant and accurate as possible. However, since literally anyone can edit an article at anytime it is a bit nerve racking; as we have learned in class, referencing a peer-reviewed scholarly source is almost always significantly more reliable. With Wikipedia we don't really have any idea as to who even wrote the article. I feel as though the trick to making a good Wikipedia article is to find the most pertinent information that people would most want to know and present it in a straightforward yet interesting way. I, personally, struggled with the 300-600 word limit as there was so much more I could have said about InStyle magazine- this is where skills of being concise go to work in hopes that as much useful information is given in such a short amount of text.
Since I have never created a blog, aside from this one, or edited articles on Wikipedia, I was a bit worried when it came to using the specific codes that are necessary-especially for the reference list. But with the help of the Wikipedia article (ironic?) Referencing for beginners, I quickly got the hang of it and was soon referencing my new and improved stub. This assignment definitely brought me the most pride of the final product and I now have a lot of appreciation for those "Gardeners" who frequently contribute correct information to the large number of articles on Wikipedia.org.
Figure 1
Figure 2
References:
A link to my Wikipedia entry
Fellow Ales 204 classmate, Samantha Stevens, wrote a blog entry about her own experience with editing a Wikipedia article, expanding on the Recycling Cotton stub. Since both of us share the same major and minor, I could relate to her when she made the point that it is a bit difficult for us to find scientific information about the majority of aspects in our field of study. However, both of us found this assignment to be extremely eye-opening and helpful-but also cautioning since we learned first hand just how simple it is for anyone to update information on Wikipedia.
Fellow Ales 204 classmate, Samantha Stevens, wrote a blog entry about her own experience with editing a Wikipedia article, expanding on the Recycling Cotton stub. Since both of us share the same major and minor, I could relate to her when she made the point that it is a bit difficult for us to find scientific information about the majority of aspects in our field of study. However, both of us found this assignment to be extremely eye-opening and helpful-but also cautioning since we learned first hand just how simple it is for anyone to update information on Wikipedia.
Figure 1: Di Battista, M. (2012). March 2012 cover of InStyle (image). Retrieved from http://www.popsugar.com/Jennifer-Aniston-InStyle-Cover-Pictures-2012-21664027
Figure 2: Forenza, S. (2011). Wikipedia logo (image). Retrieved from http://www.stefanoforenza.com/wikipedia-italia-closes-up/
