I think we often take Wikipedia pages for granted. Every time we do a search, the results often includes a Wikipedia page that has useful information about the topic. Wikipedia, although not considered a very reliable source, is a great place to start your research. It usually gives you a good overview of a subject and the different areas related to it. However, we don’t usually think about the efforts going into making these pages and all the work it takes for the authors to provide accurate information. It actually takes a lot of time to write or edit a Wikipedia page, regardless of the topic. It requires a lot of time to effectively research topics and gather information that may be missing on a Wikipedia web page.
As I am researching about the impacts of high herbivory for my research essay, for my Wikipedia assignment, I decided to edit a page in relation to herbivores. There are quite a few pages on Wikipedia in relation to herbivory and it was hard to choose one. Some that caught my interest were, ‘Herbivore’, ‘Overgrazing’ and ‘Plant tolerance of herbivory’. I decided to edit the page on overgrazing, as I found that I could contribute more to this page, based on the research I had done. Also, I think out of the pages that interested me, this was the one with the least amount of information.
After registering with Wikipedia Edu. and completing the training modules, I became more educated on how to effectively edit Wikipedia pages. I think going through the dashboard was very helpful. While doing the modules, I learned about copyright rules and what exactly is considered as plagiarism. I also got to understand how to add citations within a page more easily. In my previous edits, I put in each citation manually in source mode, as I did not know that I could easily add citations using the DOI or URL of an article. I also learned more about talk pages; a place where you can converse with other editors of that page, asking questions or clarifying problems that may arise. Out of all the things that I learned I think the most useful thing was about Creative Commons, a place where you can find pictures to legally use on public sites. I think it is a great site, and I will probably be using it more in the future. Overall, I think my Wikipedia journey throughout this course has been very eye opening and informative. I may even continue editing pages in the future and adding references.
If you would like to check out the page I edited, feel free to click here. 😊
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 