User:Hoss0052

=Assignment 1=

Linguistics is a field in which I have great interest. My favourite analogy to describe the study of Linguistics is the comparison to the work of a mechanic. Although a person may know how to drive, they may not necessarily know how the car works. Linguists are essentially the mechanics of the brain--we strive to figure out the hows and whys of the world languages. With this in mind, I decided to choose linguistic-related articles to write about. I kept most of the topics broad so that it would be easier to find the articles in question, however I decided to throw in one obscure topic (E-Prime) to test the limitations of the more "legitimate" encyclopedias.

I decided to use Encyclopedia.com to find my matching articles. I had successfully found articles for Syntax, Phonology, and Semantics--but E-Prime and the proper use of Morphology were not found. Funnily, the only morphology article focuses on the "study of the animal form", rather than the study of the parts of words. The only place where the linguistic version is mentioned is in the Oxford Dictionary definition page; which doesn't really give any information about the topic at all. As expected, there was no article referencing E-Prime. I also don't feel like Encyclopedia.com is a very informative resource, as it gives very limited information from a limited number of resources.

I find Wikipedia to be a huge help to the growth of knowledge in today's world. The stigma behind the idea that "anyone" can edit the articles may be accurate, but the range of topics covered by Wikipedia are far greater than that of the more "legitimate" encyclopedias. The ability to update articles as new information becomes available is incredible--something which is unavailable to hard copy versions of various Encyclopedias. Maybe if there was a way to have more people be involved in the monitoring of edited articles, we would be able to discern and eliminate the misinformation.

Articles from Wikipedia

 * Syntax
 * Morphology
 * Phonology
 * Semantics
 * E-Prime

Articles from Encyclopedia.com

 * Syntax
 * Morphology
 * Phonology
 * Semantics
 * E-Prime (unavailable)

MLA references

 * "E-Prime." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Sep. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
 * "Morphology (linguistics)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Sep. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013
 * "morphology." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 29 Sep. 2013 .
 * "Phonology." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Aug. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
 * "phonology." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2013. Encyclopedia.com. 29 Sep. 2013 .
 * "semantics." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2013. Encyclopedia.com. 29 Sep. 2013 .
 * "Semantics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Aug. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
 * "Syntax." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Jul. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
 * TOM McARTHUR. "SYNTAX." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. 29 Sep. 2013 