It took a bit of trial and error in order to get the hang of using the Wiki mark-up codes. It took me twenty minutes just to figure out how to align a photo to the right side of the screen! However, once I got the hang of the Wikipedia mark-up language, this turned out to be a surprisingly fun assignment! It's also beneficial to include links - blue words that are used to reference to key words, which link to other relevant Wikipedia articles. This helps readers out, especially when they come across words such as "anthocyanins," one of the antioxidants present in blueberries.
I added some information about berries under the header "Potential health effects", and the studies which have been done on them. I also created a section called "Dietary supplementation" which refers to the role of flavonals present in green tea, and how green tea extract is often added to weight-loss supplements. I also added two photos, one of wild blueberries - which are rich in antioxidants compared to cultivated blueberries. The other photo I added was the chemical structure of epigallocatechin gallate, also known as EGCG. This is the flavanol present in green tea which has been the focus of many recent studies.
I took several screen shots of my Wikipedia page becase initally, two of my entire paragraphs got deleted and edited over! My caption under blueberries described the anthocyanins present in wild blueberries, and within one day my caption had been edited by someone else to state that blueberries only contain Vitamin C - which is completely false! I was so frustrated. They also altered some of my paragraph about supplementation. This made me realize how unreliable Wikipedia truly is, because anyone can edit your work and write what they want. I noticed that Jessie's blog post described similar feelings towards Wikipedia, especially when she referred to inaccurate editing, which is especially problematic when a student is trying to learn about a new topic!
Here are some screenshots of my article after I finished editing:
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| Superfood Wikipedia article screenshot #1 (2012). Taken by Lindsay Gervais [digital image], March 22 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfood |
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| Superfood Wikipedia article screenshot #2 (2012). Taken by Lindsay Gervais [digital image], March 22 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfood |
I've really enjoyed reading your experience with Wikipedia editing. I'm glad I'm not the only one that had a hard time grasping the code. One of my favourite parts was going back through it and getting to add in the links to other pages!
ReplyDeleteSuperfood was a great topic to chose, since this is so prevalent in our daily lives and seems to be increasing in popularity. I'm actually surprised it was still a stub! You've added some great information, and really nice pictures that fit well with the topic. I really wanted to be able to add pictures to my Wikipedia article, and I was disappointed that all the pictures available were copyrighted. (My topic is Controlled Internal Drug Release devices in cattle though, a little less common than blueberries!)
It must have been so frustrating that paragraphs of your contribution were deleted, especially since it was replaced with inaccurate information! This is a great example of how unreliable Wikipedia can be. It's a good thing there are driven and educated individuals out there to keep it straight.
I really like this blog post of yours! I admire how much time and effort you have spent on making your wiki stub more professional-looking and easier for public reading. Adding a hyperlink to the keywords is a good idea. Since my topic is about a rare enzyme disease, there are not many terminologies for me to refer back to. To be honest, I did not learn much from my own experience of editing Wikipedia stub; however, I learnt a lot about the reliability and accountability of Wikipedia from other students’ experiences! One of my friends in this class, the stub that she edited was removed the next day and changed back to the original content. I understand how easily the content in Wikipedia can be changed; but I thought the wiki systems established to monitor and modify these changes would try to make sure the trueness of the information. However it is really frustrating to know that these modifications are not reliable at all! Peer-reviewed articles or printed journals from the library are must better sources for academic research papers.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post! I had similar feelings towards the Wikipedia codes, but it was easy once you got the hang of it. I also understand how frustrating it can be after putting so much hard work into making that Wikipedia page CORRECT and then someone edits over it with false information. However I'm not sure how that can be avoided since it's such an open site and anyone can edit the stubs.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the read! I look forward to reading future blogs.
Janessa
I am a little envious that you found such an interesting topic for a stub! I had a hard time sifting through them and eventually just went with anything food science related! That is super frustrating that your stub was edited while you were editing it too, I was afraid that would happen to me. Your experience has been interesting to read about and is a good reminder to not believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Just because there are people monitoring the edits and watching for vandalism it does not mean they are experts on everything related to that subject, and therefore may not know how valid the entries are.
ReplyDeleteLinds, I agree with you, this assignment was frustrating at first, but after I got use to the formatting and the tricks of the trade (the blue links and referencing ect.) it became a lot more enjoyable, and I felt like I was contributing something important! It looks like you did your research and have reliable information, which I'm sure many people will be able to learn something from. However, just like you mentioned... sometimes all the information on Wikipedia isn't as truthful and reliable as we would hope. It's really important to take everything with a grain of salt when reading and searching things on Wikipedia. That's too bad your information was overwritten, I hope you saved it in a word document!
ReplyDeleteJulianna Lackowicz