User:Blause Winterz/sandbox

Reflection Essay:

Blaise Winterhalter

English 216

Professor Hanley

11/28/23

I learned that everything, literally everything has something on Wikipedia. Even though Trina Parks had a little bit of information, I still had to add more to a nearly barren article rather than entirely start my own which is what I thought I had to originally. I decided to add what I added by just seeing what was missing from the article. Trina Park’s Wikipedia before my edits was one paragraph about her past, and then a list of her film credits and nothing more. My edits provide all of the details. A summary of my contributions would be I added information on Trina’s Wikipedia article about who her family was, where her parents met, where she grew up and went to school and a little bit of her career before moving to Hollywood. I also added information about her move to Hollywood, which agency she ended up working for, and then her career all the way up to today. The Peer Reviews were super helpful because in the first go around I forgot our articles had to be unbiased. The people doing my Peer Reviews pointed that out to me and that allowed me to clear all of the biased remarks I made about Trina’s acting career and made it a bit more neutral and matter of fact. Before my Peer Reviews I was using words like amazing, trail blazer and icon which are very biased remarks to make about an actress because not everyone feels the same way about her. The only feedback I received from another editor was that my article was moved to a Draft Page because my images were incorrectly imported so I couldn’t really respond to that feedback except find my article and then continue to work on it.

I learned so much from contributing to Wikipedia. I learned how to write academically and unbiasedly, and I learned how to persevere. When it comes to this project it seemed as though nothing could ever be done or finished. There is always something more to do and even though at times that can be frustrating, it is useful training for the real world where projects can be very stop and go. Wikipedia can be used to improve public understanding of our topics because anyone can go on Wikipedia and look whatever they need to up on it and get as much information as possible on that specific topic. It is important because it is literally sharing knowledge to anyone, permanently. The Wikipedia article project was honestly more fun than projects of the past because at least I got to write about something I was actually interested in. My Wikipedia contribution definitely improved Wikipedia’s coverage on Trina Parks because before my edits there was basically nothing about her in the article. With that being said it was very hard to get information about her, unfortunately it seems as though not that many people are writing about Trina Parks. The assignment definitely affected my understanding of how information is collected and shared. I have learned that in this process I was very much a collector and then I had to share what I collected with the rest of the world. In conclusion, I was very upset that everything I put in Trina's Wikipedia Page was removed by a Bot. It's very upsetting and it feels like all of my work was for nothing.

Rough Draft: Trina Parks was born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York City. Her parents where Charles Henry and Tennel Fun Frazier. Her parents met in their shared neighborhood of the prestigious Sugar Hill in Harlem, New York. Trina's mother was an interior decorator and her father was the lead Tenor saxophonist for the Cab Calloway Band. Trina's mother unfortunately passed away when she was younger. Her father was always out with the band on tour so this led Trina to spend a lot of time with her grandmother and aunt. Trina Parks went to high school at the Manhatten School of Performing Arts. Initially, Trina wanted to audition for the Ballet department because she was dancing Ballet since she was six years old. Trina graduated high school in 1964. Trina's first job was dancing for a dance company were she was mentored by the legendary Katherine Dunham. Trina went to school at the Dunham School of dance founded by Dunham after high school. The Dunham school is where she learned African Dance and Caribbean Dance.