User:RM395/Course/Encyclopedia comparisons
< User:RM395 | Course
Assignment[edit]
Compare a Wikipedia article with the same topic's article in a physical encyclopedia of your choice.
- The encyclopedia you use should not be digitally accessible, so this may require heading to a library
- exceptions: digitized versions of very old or foreign language encyclopedias (because sometimes the contents of these physical texts are only available online)
- older, international, obscure, or specialist encyclopedias are likely to yield the most interesting (and perhaps the most obvious) comparisons.
- e.g. "television" in 1950 vs. Television, "Tiananmen Square" in a state-sponsored Chinese encyclopedia vs. Tiananmen Square, or "Transubstantiation" in a Catholic encyclopedia vs. Transubstantiation
Describe the differences and similarities and render a judgment as to which is better.
- be sure to choose a topic on which you consider yourself to be knowledgeable. Your judgment of similarities and differences should contain more than observations about what each does or does not contain.
- It should be an evaluation that draws on your expertise and could not be done by someone previously unfamiliar with the topic. A few example questions that may or may not be relevant:
- Are both articles missing something?
- Does one overstate the importance of a particular point of view?
- Is there factually incorrect information?
- Which seems to be provide a more comprehensive or neutral perspective?
- It should be an evaluation that draws on your expertise and could not be done by someone previously unfamiliar with the topic. A few example questions that may or may not be relevant:
There is no fixed word minimum for this assignment. The length will partially depend on the topic you choose, but it seems unlikely that a good comparison could be completed in much less than [the wiki equivalent of] a couple pages.
- Please use paragraphs rather than lists.
Submission[edit]
Since one page for everybody's evaluations would get unwieldy in a hurry, I've created links to subpages for everybody's username below. Just click the appropriate link and type/copy it there.