I
chose to edit the stub on Voluntary Action. I chose to edit this stub because voluntary action is a concept that relates to both humans and animals. Thus, through understanding more about this subject, I predict it would help me better understand animals. This would be beneficial for me because I am in the Animal Health program.
I used psychology books and
peer-reviewed articles to gather information and expand the content that was
already part of the stub. My addition to the stub is only an overview of the
subject. Voluntary action is a large field; there are lots of experiments that have
been done on the subject and it incorporates many other psychological concepts
and information. However, as an overview, it fits with the encyclopedic nature
of Wikipedia.
 |
| My additions the Wikipedia stub Voluntary Action |
Jimmy
Wales, creator of Wikipedia, never intended the site to be used as a source for
in-depth information that could be used in an academic article, for example. In
an interview with The
Guardian, he said that in reality, Wikipedia shouldn’t even be used as a single
source for anything. Because it can be edited by anyone, it would be
unrealistic to expect all information on Wikipedia to be factual or
scientifically sound. (For more information, see Shannan Wilson's blog!) Despite being monitored by Gardeners and Performers,
there are still Vandals that slip through the cracks (as discussed by Erin Dul in
lecture,
on March 20). However, misinformation found on Wikipedia cannot solely be
attributed to those with malicious intent. Since articles are not only edited
by neutral experts, some biased or incorrect information is posted by those who
do not have a thorough understanding of the subject. Luckily, additions to Wikipedia
are monitored by the afore mentioned Gardeners and Performers who attempt to
catch any misnomers. Additionally, with the help of “Good Article” statuses and
in-depth reference lists, the public can have a better guess at if they are
reading accurate information.
None
of the content that was already on the page was referenced so in addition to
expanding the information, I had to ensure that the pre-existing text was correctly
cited. I found that RefWorks was an
incredible tool to ensure that all the citations were done accurately and
quickly. This allowed me to concentrate on providing information to the public instead
of spending an abundance of time on references.
