User:Allison.L.Argent/sandbox

LIB2002 Reference I

Assignment 1 - Research report on Wikipedia Comparison
Due: Sept 30, 2014

When starting this assignment I was confused. I have many interests and picking just 5 seemed really hard. I needed to narrow my options, so I checked the length of articles I was interested in. I mainly concentrated on the length of the article, avoiding those that were to short or some that were way too long. I then became concerned that the articles I was choosing weren't interesting. After this problem I asked Rebecca Leclair to assist me in my decision making and she was quite helpful. She told me that I could literally pick anything I wanted like (for example), underwear, hats, cats or Canada. Her guidance allowed me to select the topics I wished to write about (which are listed below). As I perused a variety of encyclopedias, mostly Britannica, I learned quickly that many of them had significant differences. For this assignment, I used Britannica Encyclopedia to look up articles matching my topics. The categories were all similar, however Wikipedia included additional information. Subjects that were well-known had an extensive list of references. While Britannica Encyclopedia had a listing of who their contributors were and paid professionals editing their articles; Wikipedia, you don<t really know who contributed to the article and how informed they truly are on the subject. Britannica’s information was more condensed then Wikipedia’s. The Britannica Encyclopedia felt more reliable then Wikipedia because of these differences; however I enjoyed how much more information it gave.

Overall, these are encyclopedias with their differences. Wikipedia seems like a great place to start, it gives you a bunch of information usually referenced to published articles. However if one is to use an encyclopedia to use ensured reliable sources, it is not the way to go. For these two assignments, I have chosen the following topics, stated below in the table of contents. They include the MLA format for all the encyclopedias versions of the articles.

Cats
"Cat." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Sep. 2014. Web. 21 Sep. 2014.

"domestic cat." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 23 Sep. 2014.

Bobner, John M..”Cat”. The Canadian Ecyclopedia. Toronto: Historica Canada, 2006. Web. 29 Sep. 2014

Jane Austen
"Jane Austen." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Sep. 2014. Web. 14 Sep. 2014.

"Jane Austen." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. We. 23 Sep. 2014.

Captain America
"Captain America." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 Sep. 2014. Web. 14 Sep. 2014.

"Captain America". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Sep. 2014

Fairy tale
"Fairy tale." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Sep. 2014. Web. 14 Sep. 2014.

"fairy tale". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Sep. 2014.

Wikipedia summary
The Wikipedia article on cats was very descriptive on the subject. It explains thoroughly multiple elements about the domestic cat. Some of the subjects discussed in the Wikipedia article is; anatomy, etymology, behavioural patterns, evolution, genetics, physiology, senses, health, ecology, history and much more. The article has numerous headings and subtitles, which make the article easy to navigate. The article also includes useful classification tables, helpful diagrams and some pictures. All these elements allow the reader to further learn about domestic cats.

Britannica summary
The Britannica article on domestic cats was equally as thorough as the Wikipedia article. It contained multiple headings and subtitles about the domestic cat. Some of the elements discussed in the articles is; history, features, behaviour, cats as pets, nutrition, reproduction, diseases, genetics, different type of domestic cats and much more. There are many useful pictures of different aspects of cats. All the information within the article is very simple and condensed. It is a great starting place.

Comparison
There are many similarities between both articles. They both held similar introductions with basic information about their scientific name and the role domestic cats hold in the households. The introductions also included how domestic cats are readily able to revert to their solitary nature. The both contained similar heading, such as senses, genetics, features, behaviour, reproduction, and diseases. It may not have been obvious but, both had a list of different cat breeds. Even though Wikipedia didn’t have this as a heading, it had it as a see also link within the article.

There was some noticeable contrasts between the Wikipedia and Britannica articles. For example the introduction in the Wikipedia article had more basic information to lead into the headings, such as cats breeding rate and when they started to be domesticated. Britannica on the other hand lacked a proper transition into the fallowing headings since the information was so condensed. The origin of the domestic cat held in both articles were both similar; however, the article in Wikipedia held more information and had other articles about the heading.The Wikipedia article was separated into many different headings and these headings had other useful articles linked to them. Such as under the heading, Senses, there is a linked article called Cat Senses. The Cat Senses article gave more in-depth look into the subject. The linked articles are useful and fun tidbits that help expand the information in the article. Generally, the Wikipedia article had a significantly larger amount of information in it then Britannica had in its article. For domestic cat owners, like myself, the additional information provided in the Wikipedia article was very useful in real-life situations. The additional headings made the website easy to follow and the article provided an ample amount of details which were not only interesting but very useful.

References and further readings
Wikipedia article has a very long list of references for this article and smaller list of further readings. The further readings is quite useful to the article. The “Cats” article has 230 references; even though they all pertain to the subject of the domestic cat, it seems to be a bit of an overload of reference to compensate its incredibility. Most of the references are probably there to fill in that void. Are all these sources still necessary to include since there are no footnotes to indicate what they relate to? How much of the reference is being used? How ambiguously did they reference the articles without footnotes? With some many people editing and writing the article, the contributors most likely did not properly or at all read the references. Without any indication of who has written the article, how can we tell it is being written by credible people, who understand the subject?

The “domestic cats” article in Britannica has listed its contributors. The main contributor, Micheal W. Fox, is an author outside of Britannica. He is credible for the information he delivers in this article by the role as Vice President of the Humane Society of the United States. The other contributors to the article include D.M. McGowan and eight of the many editors of Encyclopædia Britannica: Aakanksha Gaur, Gloria Lotha, Lorraine Murray, Richard Pallardy, John P. Rafferty, Charly Rimsa, Marco Sampaolo and Surabhi Sinha. All of the contributors are hired by hired by Britannica, and they all credential to support the articles they contribute to. However, there is one questionable thing about this article and that is there is no bibliography. Michael W. Fox must have used resources to support the information he provided. The editors should have caught this.

I most say that both are a little hard to trust their credibility; however, I believe that out of both I must pick Britannica. The reason for this, is because out of both of them Britannica pays their contributors to supply accurate and relevant information, and would be severely punished if it were just a bunch of vacuous information. While, Wikipedia simply has a long list of references with no footnotes to back it up or any credibility to back it up.

Final Assessment
Wikipedia's article on cats is a great article to place to start your research on the subjects. It gives you plenty of information about different aspect of the domestic cat. The article also leads you to more information pertaining to most heading in it, if one desires to learn more about it.

Britannica's article on the domestic cat is also a great article to learn about all aspects of this household pet. It gives you plenty of information that is condensed and simplified. The only down side of this article is that other the contributors there is no references telling you where they received all this information. All the links they add to the article seem to be eliminated from the article in a few months, from what the "article history" tells us.

The Wikipedia "Talk" section shows that Wikipedia takes this article very importantly, with high-importance level it was given. However, it also informs that it once was featured article, which makes it questionable as to why it no longer is. Then you look to its "history" section and you can observe that it has been changed numerous of times; simply by the fact that it has over 500 changes,and it probably has thousands. Once you notice that it started in 2004, and for each year there is probably more than 500 changes. And to add on to the numerous changes, it still is being changed. The most recent changed was November 2nd, 2014 at 00:54. It seems ridiculous how much it is being changed and how frequent. It should be left alone after sometime if the information is truly accurate. With each change it almost seems like a different person has supplied to it, there are too many contributors to know what they changed is relevant and/or credible.

From all aspects of each article, I must say that the Britannica article has step on the Wikipedia article on cats. It's only a small step. The fact that Britannica has qualified payed contributors working on the the article makes a more credible work; however, I don't like that Britannica has no references,but Wikipedia's has so many references and changes. That is a little less appealing. They both have similar context on the subject. Wikipedia is a bit more vast and detailed, while Britannica is much more simplified. Wikipedia's vast information makes more enticing then the Britannica's. The information it gives is not the most important part, compared to its credibility. Therefore, as stated at the beginning, Britannica's article on domestic cats is definitely the more formidable article.

Additional readings
Beugnet, Frédéric, et al. "Parasites Of Domestic Owned Cats In Europe: Co-Infestations And Risk Factors." Parasites & Vectors 7.1 (2014): 1-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Bradshaw, John. Cat Sense: How The New Feline Science Can Make You A Better Friend To Your Pet. New York, NY, US: Basic Books, 2013. PsycINFO. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Meunier, LaVonne D, and Bonnie V Beaver. Dog And Cat Welfare In A Research Environment. n.p.: 2014. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Ramos, D., et al. "Are Cats (Felis Catus) From Multi-Cat Households More Stressed? Evidence From Assessment Of Fecal Glucocorticoid Metabolite Analysis." Physiology & Behavior 122.(2013): 72-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Richman, Vita. --Allison.L.Argent (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)Cats. n.p.: 2014. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Wurges, Jennifer, and Rebecca J Frey. Cat's Claw. n.p.: 2014. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Cats. n.p.: 2013. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Nursing A Sick Cat. n.p.: 2014. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014

Socializing Your Cat. n.p.: 2013. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

The Taming Of The Cat. n.p.: 2014. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

What Is A Cat?. n.p.: 2013. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.