User:Buck01510/sandbox

Assignment One
Ballet "Ballet." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Sep. 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

Ballet - Encyclopedia Britannica "ballet." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

Jennifer Lawrence "Jennifer Lawrence." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Sep. 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

Jennifer Lawrence - Encyclopedia Britannica "Jennifer Lawrence." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

Android (operating system) "Android (operating system)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Sep. 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

Android - Encyclopedia Britannica "Android." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014

My search process was very simple for these articles. Because the topics are quite broad, I was able to find them very easily. One major difference that I had noticed was that the article from Wikipedia on Android was much more detailed than the article on Britannica. However the other two articles were roughly the same size and the same amount of details. I chose these articles because they were the first things that I thought of, and I devised that these subjects would be simple enough to find.

"Ballet" in Wikipedia
The ballet article on Wikipedia talks about how ballet started in the 15th century, in the Italian Renaissance courts. Ballet is an incredible discipline that takes years and years of training and practice to master. Wikipedia gives a brief description of the etymology of the word "ballet". The word "ballet" is a French word, and was adapted into the English language in 1630. There is quiet a detailed section on the history of ballet, including who founded the first dance academy. It was called the Paris Opera Ballet, and was founded in 1672. The Wikipedia article also goes into the details of the different types of styles of ballet, including classical, contemporary, and neoclassical. The article also mentions some of the best professional choreographers and dance companies.

"Ballet" in Encyclopedia Britannica
The article on Encyclopedia Britannica Online has an incredible amount of detail. There are several subsections just under the history of ballet. Britannica goes on to describe the great dancers, choreographers, and dance companies. Some of the people mentioned were Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, Natalia Makarova, and Sylvie Guillem. A number of ballet companies that have risen throughout the years were included as well, such as the Royal Ballet in London, the Paris Opéra Ballet, and the Danish Royal Ballet.

Comparison of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica
There is quite a difference in the lengths of the two articles. Encyclopedia Britannica goes much more into detail in its article, while Wikipedia only covers a basic amount of information on ballet. Wikipedia only covers a brief part of ballet's history, and only the beginning of ballet. Encyclopedia Britannica covers all of ballet's history. It starts off describing the history of ballet from the 15th and 16th century, and goes all the way to 1945. Afterwards, there is another section on the history of ballet after 1945. Wikipedia gives the origin of the word "ballet", where Encyclopedia Britannica does not.

While Encyclopedia Britannica covers a vast history of ballet, it does not touch on the styles of ballet. Wikipedia gives the reader a brief but thorough section on the styles of ballet. Overall, the quality of the Britannica article is much higher than the Wikipedia article.

References, contributors, and further reading
Encyclopedia Britannica's "Ballet" article has two main contributors. One is Ivor Guest, who is a ballet historian. He has been the author of several books, such as "The Ballet of the Enlightenment" and "The Romantic Ballet in Paris". The other main contributor to the article is Marion Kant. Kant is a dance historian, musicologist, and Senior Lecturer for the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. There are 13 other contributors to the Encyclopedia Britannica article, including the Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. There are an incredible amount of users that have edited the Wikipedia article, far too many to name. In the Encyclopedia Britannica article, the additional readings section is quite large. There are additional readings for ballet technique, ballet companies, ballet in different countries, encyclopedias and dictionaries covering ballet, and also general history books. However, Wikipedia only has a total of eight books under their further reading section. In fact, one of the books mentioned on Wikipedia, "Cambridge Companion to Ballet", was written by Marion Kant, the main contributor for the Encyclopedia Britannica article. Encyclopedia Britannica has much more to offer for further reading than Wikipedia.

Assessment of both articles
On a general note, I prefer the Encyclopedia Britannica article over the Wikipedia article. The Encyclopedia Britannica is much richer in detail, and goes more in depth with the history of ballet. I feel that the contributors for the Britannica article are much more educated on the subject than the contributors on Wikipedia, and I felt I had a clearer perspective on ballet with Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica is also a much cleaner article to look at. Wikipedia's article on ballet is tagged under the "Needs Improvement" section, and has only been rated as a B-Class article. . Wikipedia's article does not have the structure that Encyclopedia Britannica's does. The Wikipedia article needs quite a bit of improvement before it can be considered a good, reliable article on the subject of ballet.

Additional resources
"How to Attract and Retain Artistic Talent: The Case of an Italian Ballet Company." "Life in Pictures: Wendy Whelan; A prima ballerina's farewell, from final bow to bedtime." "Ballet: An Illustrated History". "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet." "The National Ballet of Canada." "The Colourful World of Ballet." "Dance Moves: An African American Ballet Company in Poswar Los Angeles." "Kylián's Space Composition and His Narrative Abstract Ballet." "Embodying a Queer Worldview: The Contemporary Ballets of Katy Pyle and Deborah Lohse." "Dancing the Nation: Performing France in the Seventeenth-Century Ballets des nations."