Wikipedia is an online, open access encyclopedia, although some may refer to it as their academic hero. This website is brimming with information on nearly any topic one can think of. The only downfall, depending on how you look at it, is the fact that anyone can edit it as they please. As a result of this, there is a popular anecdote circulating on the internet, explaining how an entire high school history class wrote papers about how Hitler was secretly in a relationship with Stalin, a ploy devised by their teacher to weed out the hard workers from the plagiarizers. Regardless of this problematic facet, myself, along with the rest of the world will most likely never grow tired of good ol’ Wikipedia.
I, myself, had never edited a Wikipedia page until a few weeks ago. I’d always assumed there was some criteria or certification that one needed to edit a page. But it turns out that all you need to do is create an account! And let me tell you, it’s a rush knowing so many people’s sources of information lay in the palm of your hand. I could alter history… At least until someone corrects my edits and probably has me banned from the website.
To edit a page, you need to start out by finding a page that actually needs editing and will allow it. Most Wikipedia pages are overflowing with both useful and useless tidbits, although some are locked and cannot be edited by the general public. In this example, not surprisingly, I chose cake.
Reading the Wikipedia page on red velvet taught me something valuable. Red velvet cake is actually just red dyed chocolate. The nerve.
I would suggest only writing about something you are 100% certain of, such as something native to your home country. To edit, you click on “Edit Source” by the title of the given section on the page you have chosen, enter your revisions, click “Publish Changes” and voila! You can now call yourself a true Wikipedian.
Welcome to the family. 🙂
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 