User:Michael Struble

Hello, my name is Michael Struble. I recently graduated High School, and am now enrolled in classes at a local community college. I am working toward an Associates of Arts degree. My interests include: listening to loud music in my car, going to the movies, and playing sports. I am a very deep person, who loves nature. I love being immersed in it. For example: when I had my head out of my car window, gazing at the late-night moon in its brilliance through an opening in the smoky clouds, with the wind swiftly pushing my hair back. I am an occasional video-game-geek, and can be very independent. I enjoy having a good time.

I find Wikipedia to be fascinating; this is because of how easy editing pages is. I look forward to being bold and making those changes. I prefer reading and writing about things that are deep and philosophical, or about things that are mysterious and thought-provoking. Such as different systems of beliefs, or social politics on controversial issues. And such as scientific fiction, or the vastness and wonders of outer space. If I am passionate and/or interested in a topic, then I can write about it industriously. I am excited to be here, and am ready to change the world in small, but yet important ways.

Article Review

I drive a stick-shift, or a manual vehicle, and have been driving it for 4 years. I am interested in these cars and am also interested in optimizing the world’s largest encyclopedia. So I visited the Manual transmission page on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: its unreliable and dead sources, its irrelevant section, and its bias and informal language.

Unreliable sources

The article includes several sketchy and/or unofficial citations. Including a source that is in fact: “dead.” The dead source is shown at the bottom of the page under footnote 20. Many of these sources are full of adds and have unofficial URLs. One sketchy source is titled: “Lemon;” this is located under footnote 23. This source includes all of the faults mentioned above. And, in addition, it appears to be full of original speech. The first sentence of this source is the writer telling readers the “first two thoughts that cross their mind” when they hear the name of a game. It is clearly an unofficial source based on free-flowing thought, and writing.

Irrelevant section

Cited sources like Lemon directly relate to an informal section within the article about arcade games, with stick-shift functionality. This functionality is not appropriately placed for the topic of stick-shifts; this is because video games and reality are in fact two separate topics. To a reader looking for information about manual transmissions, a section about arcade games is out-of-place. Information about arcade games ought to be kept within video game sites, that are designed for specific video-gamer audiences.

Informal language

One last aspect in this article I found worth commenting on is informal speech. For example, under the second paragraph of the section titled: “Reverse,” the following sentence is written: “As that selection is made, some mechanism in the transmission stops the input shaft.” The key phrase here is: “some mechanism.” This phrase is not only informal language, but also implies bias and more original speech. This mechanism mentioned is not only in need of identification,  but is also in need of a source, and more elaboration.

Summary

As a whole, this page is well developed and provides very useful information to stick-shift drivers. Such as an accurate warning never to shift in the reverse while your car is still moving forward; this grinds the gears as explained. However the article is in much need of improvement. This is shown not only by the flag at the top of the page, but also by: the unreliable sources. The irrelevant section about arcade games.  And by the bias, informal language.