User:Junek.k/sandbox

Introduction
When I started searching Wikipedia for articles for this project I was struck by the sheer quantity of information. My previous experience with Wikipedia was limited to the odd Google search, but I had never spent a quantity of time just looking around. I started by searching for information about Carnegie Libraries. This topic had come up in our Introduction to Libraries class where I realized that I knew very little about the history of libraries. This led to a fascinating article about Andrew Carnegie, which includes a great deal of information on how the Carnegie library system worked. When I explored this same topic on Encyclopaedia Brittanica, I was able to find plenty of biographical information about Carnegie but very little on the libraries he endowed.

After this initial foray I was a bit stumped and overwhelmed by the quantity of options. I started to look for a topic that was more recent, thinking that this would be a good way to compare how quickly these resources adapt to new information. Initially I chose the 2010 Haiti earthquake. However, I found that there was quite a lot of information on this event in multiple encyclopedias, including Encyclopaedia Brittanica and Access Science.

Wanting to try something even more recent, I also searched for articles on Superstorm Sandy. I was somewhat surprised to find a corresponding article in Encyclopaedia Brittanica,, I had thought that it would take longer for an encyclopedia to be updated. Therefore, I was surprised when I searched Access Science and found that the content was limited to a news article from October 2012. This leads me to conclude that the more science focused encyclopedia will take longer to update as they wait for the scientific research to be made available.

Lastly, I decided to choose a Canadian topic to better explore the difference in content between Canadian encyclopedias and Wikipedia. Specifically, I am interested in whether there is bias or altering of tone depending on the source. For this I chose a controversial topic, the Athabasca Oil Sands. The Canadian Encyclopedia breaks the topic into several subject articles, including separate pages on Bitumen and the Athabasca region. The Encyclopedia of the Earth also has several different articles on the topic, including this article that focusses on the health risks associated with the oil sands development. 

Conclusions
At this point of the research process, I am pleasantly surprised with the quality of the information on Wikipedia. The encyclopedias that I have compared have shown consistent information. The wikipedia articles have done a good job of consolidating all of the relevant information in one article under multiple headings. I did find that the writing in Wikipedia is not always the same quality as that found in the other encyclopedias.

Hurricane Sandy:Wikipedia
On October 22, 2012 a tropical wave began developing in the Carribbean Sea that would, over the next seven days, become Hurricane Sandy. The Wikipedia article breaks the information down into 5 main sections with several subsections; Meteorological history, Forecasts, Preparations, Impact and Aftermath. The article begins with a detailed overview of the extent, damage and impact of this enormous storm. Hurricane Sandy managed to effect people in seven different countries while killing a combined total of 286 people. The Caribbean nations of Jamaica, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas all suffered flooding, property damage and deaths from the storm. The storm was so large that indirect deaths also occurred as far north as Ontario and Quebec. The biggest impact of this Hurricane, however, was the extensive property damage that occurred in the Eastern United States, particularly in New York and New Jersey. There is also a section that touches on the role that global warming may or may not have played in the creation and impact of the storm.

Under the heading of Preparations, the article describes the forecasting and preparations that were made in the countries that were in the path of this storm, including a breakdown by individual states of the United States. Detailed descriptions of when and where meteorological watches and warnings were implemented are also included. A day by day summary of events tracks the storm as it moves up the east coast of the United States detailing the actions taken by various levels of government as well as disaster management teams such as Federal Emergency Management Agency. There are detailed descriptions on the impact of Hurricane Sandy as well as the aftermath. The article also details relief efforts and media coverage. The political impact section includes the impact that government response to the crisis had on the presidential and gubernatorial elections that followed in November.

Superstorm Sandy:Encyclopedia Britannica
In Encyclopedia Britannica, the article on Superstorm Sandy is divided into 4 sections. An introduction that gives an overview of the extent and damage of the storm followed by sections on the origin and development of the hurricane, the origin and development of the superstorm and finally the damage. There is detail given that describes the path of the storm including descriptions of the wind speeds and the meteorological phenomena that combined to create the Superstorm. This article also describes the death tolls and damage that occurred in the seven countries that were impacted by the storm.

Comparing and Contrasting
While the subject of the two articles is the same, the approach could not be more different. The Wikipedia article is incredibly detailed, so much so that it extends to 20 pages and cites 327 references. In contrast, the Britannica article is two pages long, with several links to other articles within Britannica that mention Superstorm Sandy. The Wikipedia article provides a detailed description of the entire storm, listing details for the forecasting, preparations, impact and aftermath that occurred in each of the seven countries affected by this storm. The Britannica article in contrast provides an overview and focuses on the meteorological explanation of events rather than the human reaction. A lot of the information in the Wikipedia article is repeated because it has been divided into many subsections and regional listings. Also, there are many pictures, videos and tables depicting the storm and its aftermath. By contrast, the Britannica article has just two pictures that show the path of the storm. The articles manage to convey the same information, however the Britannica article is much more succinct and focused. Additionally, the plethora of citations in the Wikipedia article is distracting and clutters the information that it is trying to convey.

It is interesting to note that some of the facts between the two articles differ. For example, the death tolls are different. Some of the differences are small, for example Britannica states that there were two deaths in the Dominican Republic, Wikipedia states three. This could be explained in that often attributing deaths to natural disasters such as hurricanes can be a tricky and inexact science, depending on what is defined as a direct versus indirect death. However, the Wikipedia article attributes between 73 and 87 deaths in the United States to Hurricane Sandy and Britannica “more than 125”. The Wikipedia source is cited from the National Climatic Data Centre, when I visited the indicated webpage, it did not mention anything about the number of deaths. Clearly this is problematic and indicative of why this article did not achieve "good article" designation. However, because the Britannica article does not cite its sources, I am unable to verify if that data is correct either.

The general information of the two articles is the same, they both give an overview of the storm and its impact. The Wikipedia article provides plenty of pictures of damage as well as data charts and images. The Britannica article is more judicious with its images, showing only one image of the path of the storm along with a picture of the cloud formation. However, I find this to be in keeping with the succinct, scientific tone of the article.

References, Contributors and Further reading
The list of references for the Wikipedia article is simply enormous, 327. However, most of them seem to be authoritative. There is a Tropical Cyclone Report from the United States National Hurricane Center that is referenced quite heavily. When I consulted this report I found it to be an authoritative study providing detailed analysis of the weather data collected during the storm. Additionally, a number of reputable news agencies are referenced including CNN, CBC, the New York Times, Associated Press and the Washington Post. The article also references several USA government agencies including FEMA and many reports and updates from the National Hurricane Center.

The Further Reading section from Wikipedia is by contrast only one entry, an article titled “How Math helped forecast Hurricane Sandy” from Scientific American. The list of contributors to this article is quite extensive. Some of them appear to have some knowledge and experience with respect to hurricanes, however with others it is less clear. Some appear to no longer write for Wikipedia while others, such as hurricanehink write extensively on hurricanes and other meteorological events. The Britannica article provides external links to NPR (National Public Radio) though the latest article was posted in February 2013 and deals mostly with the aftermath of the storm. The writer, John P. Rafferty holdes a Ph.D in geography and is the Earth Sciences editor for Britannica. It is very easy to verify that the article is written by someone with authority on the subject, however it is less clear where his information comes from. The Related Articles section is not extensive and does not seem to provide unbiased sources, one of these articles is from an insurance magazine about how three insurance agents handled the storm. Considering that there have been many publications by such authoritative sources as Scientific American, it would be appropriate to see this section expanded.

Assessment
The 2 articles about Superstorm Sandy are at opposite ends of the spectrum in my opinion. The Wikipedia article does not flow well and gets lost in the minute details, especially when tracking the storm. By contrast, the Britannica article is clear and explains the science behind the progression of the storm well. While both articles provide the relevant information, the Britannica article's writing is far superior. An example of this contrast in writing styles occurs during the description of damage in Haiti.

Rafferty writes "The high winds and torrential rains that buffeted parts of southern Haiti also destroyed crops and blew away or washed away thousands of tents and temporary structures that were being used to house refugees from the Haiti earthquake of 2010. THe hurricane left an estimated 200,000 people without shelter."

Wikipedia writes "Most of the tents and buildings in the city's sprawling refugee camps and the Cité Soleil neighbourhood were flooded or leaking, a repeat of what happened earlier in the year during the passage of Hurricane Isaac. Crops were also wiped out by the storm and the country would be making an appeal for emergency aid."

As you can see, the Wikipedia excerpt has some grammatical problems, especially in the last sentence where the tenses do not agree. The Britannica article is more concise and well written.

The name of the storm caused a huge debate in the Talk pages of the Wikipedia article. At issue was the use of the term Superstorm versus hurricane. Various contributors vehemently argued that Superstorm is not a meteorological term and therefore should not appear in the article because it was not "good science". The counter-argument was that Superstorm Sandy is the common name for this event that is used by government organizations, including FEMA and therefore warranted inclusion. A compromise was reached to name the article Hurricane Sandy but include a reference to Superstorm Sandy in the first sentence. Whether a similar debate occurred at Britannica, we will never know, but the writer chose to use Superstorm Sandy as the proper name with the alternate titles in the first sentence.

Also at issue for Wikipedia was the inclusion of references to global warming as a cause of the storm. The ongoing controversy about the linkages between global warming and extreme weather resulted in considerable debate in the Talk section. This article was nominated for good article status, but failed for many reasons, namely poor writing quality, organizational issues and citation problems. The reviewer was particularly harsh and suggested that the entire article needs to be scrapped and begun again.

When conducting my own search for additional resources on this topic, I found many resources that would be excellent candidates for inclusion in both of these articles. This makes me wonder why more are not included in either case. This plays in to my reasoning in choosing this topic in the first place. I wondered how Britannica and Wikipedia would do with a relatively new topic. I think that the writing on Hurricane Sandy demonstrates that encyclopedic writing, especially such crowd based platforms as Wikipedia, takes time to be well written and well researched. For Wikipedia more time is needed to refine and correct this article while Britannica could use some expansion on their resource section.

Additional Resources
Blake, Eric S., Todd B. Kimberlain, Robert J. Berg, John P. Cangialosi, John L. Beven II. "Tropical Cyclone Report Hurricane Sandy." 12 February 2013. nhc.noaa.gov. Web. 10 November 2013.

Emily Anne, Epstein. "Photos: Stunned by Sandy, Coney Island Cleans Up." New York Observer 05 Nov. 2012: Regional Business News. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Fischetti, Mark. "Storm Of The Century Every Two Years." Scientific American 308.6 (2013): 58-67. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Folger, Tim. "By The Time Hurricane Sandy Veered Toward The Northeast." National Geographic 224.3 (2013): 38-57.Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Grossman, Lisa, and Michael Marshall. "Eating Away At The Core." New Scientist 216.2890 (2012): 6-8. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Halverson, Jeffrey B.Rabenhorst, Thomas. "Hurricane Sandy: The Science And Impacts Of A Superstorm." Weatherwise66.2 (2013): 14-23. Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Reid, Robert L. "USGS Research Before And After Hurricane Sandy Helps Study Coastal Changes." Civil Engineering (08857024) 83.4 (2013): 16-18. Business Source Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Springen, Karen. "Hurricane Sandy: The Road To Recovery." Publishers Weekly 260.12 (2013): 22-23. Business Source Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Sun, Feifei. "Flooded. Uprooted. Burned. The Tracks Of Sandy." Time 180.22 (2012): 32-39. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Tamagno, Bruce. "Hurricane Sandy Wreaks Havoc!." Geodate 26.4 (2013): 6-9. Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.