User:Aumgirl2024/Draft Argumentative Paper

There is an ongoing debate on whether online databases, such as Wikipedia, are reliable. Many argue that, since anyone has the ability to edit the information at any time, it can be biased and untrue, therefore not trustworthy.  The works included on Wikipedia can, at any time, be incorrect, a work in progress or even an act of malicious intent.  Because of this, and the fact that this is an open-source platform, it is difficult to monitor every edit for accuracy.  For this reason, many students can most likely recall their teachers advising them not to consider Wikipedia as a source for any topic.

For any errors that are noticed, many are corrected immediately.  Many more errors remain unnoticed, therefore rendering Wikipedia an untrustworthy source. Much of these unnoticed errors can be attributed to the fact that several groups are underrepresented in Wikipedia.   One of the main underrepresented groups is women.  It is a common claim that women make up a low percentage of edits in Wikipedia. According to “'Anyone can edit', not everyone does: Wikipedia's infrastructure and the gender gap”, less than ten percent of editors on Wikipedia are women. This gender gap argument can be illustrated by covering the following elements: coverage bias; structural bias, lexical bias and visibility bias.

Coverage bias exemplifies the differences between the number of prominent women and men depicted on Wikipedia.  An example that one could conclude is that there are more entries of prominent men as compared to women. Structural bias discusses the tendency to link articles of noteworthy people with the same or different gender. An example that one could conclude is that there are more articles about women that have more links to men than the other way around.

Lexical bias uncovers disparities in the words used to describe prominent men and women on Wikipedia. An example that one might conclude is that articles about women are theoretically more likely to mention the woman’s husband/kids than similar articles about men. While visibility bias simply reflects the number of articles on men or women that make it to the first page of Wikipedia. An example that one might conclude is that articles about men might appear more often and have better chances to appear on the first page.

Despite this gender bias argument, proponents of the online base can, alternatively, argue on the reliability of Wikipedia.  If students learn to use the tool correctly and effectively, contributions made would strengthen the reputation and overall impact of Wikipedia in the academic arena.  This would bring enhanced credibility to the online base not only for the scholarly audience but for the international audience as well.