User:Jessyyx/sandbox

Week 2- Content Gap Questions

Wikipedians often talk about "content gaps." What do you think a content gap is, and what are some possible ways to identify them?

When Wikipedians refer to "content gaps", they are most likely referring to information on a specific article that is not there. In other words, the subject that is being written about is lacking a certain depth of content and therefore has a gap. One can identify these gaps in several ways. If there is a lack of citations, then it is possible that the content is missing information. Or, if the writer is generalizing their sources by saying "they" or "some" instead of being specific about their references then there is certainly a content gap in the article. Another way of identifying this is looking at the length of sentences and sections in the article- if they are not proportional then it is highly likely that there is a content gap in the material being presented.

What are some reasons a content gap might arise? What are some ways to remedy them?

A content gap may arise when the writer does not find sufficient information for their article so they turn to unreliable sources for information. By doing this, they may leave gaps in their writing making some sections longer than others or they may fill in information themselves which is also causes more gaps in the content being presented. Some ways to remedy this from happening would be for the writer to go back to their talk page to see if other Wikipedians have left improvements or comments on the article that may eliminate content gap. Also, the writer can look at the edit history and see if any one has altered their information in a way that is going to benefit their credibility.

Does it matter who writes Wikipedia?

No, it does not matter who writes on Wikipedia because it is an open and free space for any one to write on. The point of this website is to build upon knowledge that is already out there and share it. Although anyone is free to write on Wikipedia, the servers do not allow plagiarizing of any kind so people cannot just copy and paste whatever they want onto the platform, it needs to be worded in their own words and cited by appropriate sources.

What does it mean to be "unbiased" on Wikipedia? How is that different, or similar, to your own definition of "bias"?

Being "unbiased" on Wikipedia simply means that whatever content is written on the site has to be written as neutral as possible with no personal biases about the content on the page. For instance, if I am editing more information onto the page of a famous historical figure, I cannot write that I think that person is great or if I think that person is evil. The point of being "unbiased" here is to have a neutral point of view towards every subject. As a journalism major, my definition of "unbiased" is essentially the same. This means that one cannot state their position or views about a certain topic. Instead, one has to leave those feelings behind and just focus on facts.

Week 4- Thinking about Sources and Plagiarism

Blog posts and press releases are considered poor sources of reliable information. Why?

The reason why blog posts and press releases are considered to be poor sources of reliable information is because of their lack of credibility, biases and lack of depth in information. For instance, bloggers tend to focus their websites/posts on their own personal opinions about things such as fashion, world news, education, food, etc. This is what makes them a blogger in their nature because they publish their own personal beliefs. Hence, it is unreliable to look upon these sites as reliable sources because the majority of them are naturally bias. In the same sense it goes for press releases in their lack of credibility. Both blogs and releases publish a certain point of view in which they want to deliver their information so as a result, they do not correctly site their sources, if they even give any in the first place. Their lack of depth comes from a mix of no credibility and biases. Because they have no reinforcement and reinforce their own personal opinions, most of the content has no true depth that one can analyze.

What are some reasons you might not want to use a company's website as the main source of information about that company?

There are several reasons why one might not want to use a company's website as the main source of information about the company and the primary reason would be the massive amount of bias in its content. For example, I work at a boxing studio and we were trained based on the structure of their website. This means that we are told to sell the studio as the best boxing workout you can ever be at. In other words, every time you log into the studios website everything is targeted to bring in customers. Hence, the website just has every single positive aspect about the company itself. Everything from using diction that describes it as being the best gym to testimonials of people and their experience to catchy phrases about pricing, etc. This is just one example of what essentially, every company does. No company is going to speak negatively about itself on their own website and it is for this prime reason that one should not look for their own website directly as a source of information about their company because you wont be able to see the potential negative side about it.

What is the difference between a copyright violation and plagiarism?

The difference between a copyright violation and plagiarism play along the same lines but have very different meanings. Although there are different types of plagiarism (unattributed, cited sources, close paraphrasing), all of them come down to the same definition - copying someone else's work, even if its a slight variation. This ranges from copying and pasting information that is not yours to changing a few words or not directly citing the sources where you obtained the information from. On the other hand, a copyright violation is an illegal act where you use someone's protected work without their permission or without citing that the work is theirs. In this case, a copyright violation can be as simple as not citing a published article to distributing an artists music without permission.

What are some good techniques to avoid close paraphrasing and plagiarism?

Some good techniques in order to avoid close paraphrasing and plagiarism are to take notes while reading an article rather than trying to switch around the words. A good way to master this technique is to write down the notes as if you were giving a presentation on them rather than copying exactly what is written. In this sense, you will be explaining in your own thought process which will avoid close paraphrasing someone else's work and more importantly, it will avoid plagiarizing. Other techniques include writing your article based on the notes you have already taken from your sources rather than using the source itself and also taking notes of the most important terms within the work rather than taking note of every little detail.

Week 4-Possible Topics

The following are possible article topics that I can tackle for this project. All of them are already existent on Wikipedia.

1.Lazare Carnot

• After the Jacobin page, this page holds the most information pertaining to its subject. Lazare Carnot would be the appropriate for me to do since he is the character I was assigned to do for the project. Even though it holds a good amount of information, after making an outline, I realized that there is a lot more that could be added about his life and different categories can be switched around to develop different ideas about work and his life.

2.Carnot's theorem (thermodynamics)

• Because Carnot was a very important engineer and mathematician, this page details his theorem on thermodynamics. It rarely has any information besides the theorem itself and how it works. In this page, I can explore more about the history of how he came to it in the first place.

3.Jacobin (politics)

• Lazare was part of this faction during the French revolution and this particular page is one of the two that currently exists. This one in particular focuses on the political aspects of the faction rather than the history/background. I can use this one to analyze different aspects that go beyond the political area. The only issue here is that it may be redundant to the other Jacobin page so I would need to be extra careful.

4.Jacobin

• This is the main page of the Jacobin faction on Wikipedia. This one is already established and has a lot of notes on the talk page about errors that need to be fixed. If I use this article then I can analyze what those errors are and focus on developing those ideas onto the article.

5. Committee of Public Safety

• Lazare was a member of the Committee of Public Safety longer than he served in any other position so I think this would be great one to develop on. The article itself is fairly short and can use a lot of room to develop on considering how extensive their work was.

Week 5- Finalize Topic/Find Sources

Lazare Carnot

This will be the final topic I will be using to add on to and conduct my research on. The following is an outline of what I propose to do.

Education and Early Life

• Add Date of Birth ✔
• More information about his family, specifically his father ✔
• Elaborate more on his early life, try to make the order chronological since it bounces to different ages. ✔

Political Career

• Put in more detail on his election to the Committee for Public Instruction. The present is lacking a lot of information. ✔
• Mission to Bayonne? Elaborate on his accomplishments and further describe the events on what his role played there. ✔ (didn't find a lot)
• Elaborate on the "conscription: levee en masse" which was his war strategy. ✔
• Maybe separate section for his relationship with Robiespierre or elaborate more on it in this section. ✔
• Elaborate on information on his work in the directory and Treaty of CAMPO FORMIO. (couldn't find more info)

Retirement

• This is a little over the place, move around in chronological order of what he did after. ✔
• SEPERATE SECTION on his relationship with Napoleon. ✔

Impact

• Elaborate on how he led the downfall of Robiesperre? ✔
• This section is too bias from the original author, I deleted it.

Sources/Bibliography

• "Lazare Carnot Savant" (published book)
• "Lazare Carnot, A Republican Patriot" (published book)
• "Pour vaincre : Lazare Carnot : vie, opinions et pensées de l'organisateur." (published book)
• "In Lazare Carnots Footsteps" (academic journal)
• "Napoléon & Carnot; épisode de l'histoire militaire d'Anvers" (Published Book)

Week 5- Drafting: Improving Existing Article

Notes for Improvement

• In the "Education and Early life section" the date of birth needs to be stated. Also, there is no order as to what his did in his early life, everything is just simply stated. It would help to add more structure to this area.
• Under the "Political Career" tabs there needs to be more elaboration on his miltary duties with description on what exactly made him the "Organizer of Victory."
• More details on his relationship with Napoleon. They brush over it here and they also place different points in history at different areas which is confusing - need to reorganize so it is all together in one. Maybe a separate section just for this?
• Needs separate section (more details) on the history of his mathematical accomplishments rather than just the mathematical theorems themselves.

Week 6-Responding to Peer Review

The person who reviewed my article posted it on its talk page directly. There were pointers saying that I should shorten the fifth section which is "Work in Mathematics and Theoretical Engineering" but I have found extensive research about all of his findings in that area so instead of making the section smaller, I am going to extend it but with more clarity and explanation as to the work he has done. Yes, I do believe that there needs to be specifics referring to his education and career. All of this will be under "Education and Early Life." The description of his label as the "Organizer of Victory" is indeed very vague and misplaced in the first area. I do believe that they are using it as an intro but I plan on tying in his work as a military general to the development of that name so that there are not any gaps left for the reader to interpret or understand. The "Political Career" section is very thorough so I will hardly be making any changes except changing the order of how events occurred or fixing specifics. While doing this, I plan to determine whether it is worth to split this section in two, there might not be enough depth to do so.