An encyclopedia's Information is more credible than that of Wikipedia as there is a more official process to get a printed encyclopedia entry published vs the process of getting a Wikipedia entry 'published'. However, I have found that Wikipedia has a plethora of useful information which is constantly being kept up to date. Wikipedia is also extremely accessible. I am much more likely to use Wikipedia online vs using a writen encyclopedia or even an online encyclopedia.
On the online SCSU library website I was not sure how to search withing printed encyclopedias. I was, however, able to find entries by simply walking over to the encyclopedia section of the library and opening a few of them and looking up Wicca entries.
Also, by using Sage Refence through the SCSU Library website, I was able to find 36 entries on Wicca in online encyclopedias. I went to Library > Ebooks > Sage Reference Online > Advanced Search > Search Within Encyclopedias > and entered my topic.
In comparison with Wikipedia, the encyclopedia entries offered many different interpretations and definitions of what Wicca was. If offered dozens of research studies done my dozens of different people, whereas Wikipedia seemed to offer one definition. Although it was a very educational, indepth definition that offered different dates, influences, important people, and affects of society. Both encyclopedias and Wikipedia are two very useful forms of gathering knowledge, although I love Wikipedia and will definitely be using it in my research, I have come to also find the usefulness of encyclopedias as well, and feel that my research would not be complete without their influence.
Hi Caleb,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post on encyclopedia and Wikipedia entries. Great idea, to walk over to Reference and look through the encyclopedias themselves to find entries! :)
Based on the evaluation criteria that we talked about in class, what was the "best" encyclopedia entry that you found? How did it compare to the Wikipedia entry?
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Professor Wexelbaum
I found an online encyclopedia article that I liked, but when I compared it to the search criteria, it may not be as good as I originally thought. I could not find a date of when it was written, the only way to find a word count is to copy and paste it to a word document, there was no works cited page, the author had a biography which included other works and college degree, the information did seem accurate, and I had no reason to believe that the author was bias in any way.
ReplyDeleteThe Wikipedia entry, however, was much better. It is organized so that I could jump to different parts of the article that interested me, there was a massive works cited page, it listed the date it was last updated, info seemed accurate, the editors are anonymous however, but the works cited page is good enough for me.
Sounds good! And sometimes that is how it is...sometimes an entry from one source is more appropriate for academic audiences than others.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at the ranking of the Wikipedia Wicca article...it was well-reviewed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wicca
Professor Wexelbaum