User:Miller5108/sandbox

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE BEDROOM
By Kendra miller

Opening thesis
Most often when a person wants to research something they Google it, and click on the Wikipedia link. But is Wikipedia a good source when answering a formal question? How much difference is there between it and another authoritative site such as the Canadian Encyclopedia?

Wikipedia summary
The modern bedroom is a private place where people sleep, relax and perhaps have fun with a partner. However, the bedroom hasn’t always been the private place it is today. Everyone in the household slept in one room. “The common person was doing well if he could buy a [feather] mattress after seven years of marriage”. Seeing as 1/3 of a middle classed person's wealth was tied into their bed, it became a serious status symbol. The rich even took the beds with them when they traveled. Since then the bed has become a relatively inexpensive item. The bed has been replaced as a status symbol by the television. “43% of children from ages 3 to 4 have a television in their bedrooms”.

Canadian Encyclopedia summary
The Canadian encyclopedia discusses houses both past and present. The author started at the earliest form of home (the igloo), he described its construction and how the Inuit’s lifestyle reflected their environment. He finished with alternatives to the bungalow, where he describes what was new and emerging trends, such as mixed zoning where people could live in the same area, if not the same building as the offices. He sums the article up by saying “The best of Canadian housing developments are close to ideal, but the majority, especially those that are affordable to many, have some distance to go”.

Compare and Contrast
Wikipedia deals specifically with the bedroom, where as the Canadian Encyclopedia deals with the house in general. However, they both describe and discuss people’s living space. While Wikipedia, having been edited and formatted by random, perhaps uneducated people, it was a mess. While as the Canadian Encyclopedia was written by a “legendary” professor, and was meticulously planned. It, unlike the Wikipedia article is an easy read and you do not have to worry about the information being in doubt or finding a nasty surprise. The Canadian encyclopedia article is also a considerable longer length, mainly because it has more information. Another difference is that Wikipedia was last updated November 10 2013, while the Canadian encyclopedia is somewhere between the 1970s and 2001 when he passed away.

Wikipedia contributors
On august 2 2013 Ben of USA made a minor edit clarifying that closets weren’t mandatory for a room to be considered a bedroom. After him was SPR guy on September 2, 2013. He completely deleted this article and has since been barred. The Teninator reverted the revision back to Ben of USA on September 2, 2013. Coincidently he has a +6,448 rating vs. SPR guy’s -6,488. The article in question was next edited by the user number 70.79.251.119. This individual slipped an inappropriate remark into the definition. Which was then fixed the same day, by Gareth Griffith-Jones September 25, 2013. The last revision was a minor one by me, miller5108 on November 10 2013.

Canadian Encyclopedia contributors
The author was Norbert Schoenauer a professor at the McGill school of architecture. He “served the University and the community as a teacher, researcher, administrator, and advocate for responsible planning and design. His courses at McGill were legendary, particularly history of housing”. He passed away in 2001 making this article out of date by at least 12 years.

Assessment of Wikipedia
The Wikipedia article was not very well structured; for example, underneath the heading ‘History’ was the subtopic ‘furnishings’, where they discuss first the past then the present of bedroom furniture. The next subtopic (still under history) is modern bedrooms, where they discuss where people tend to put their clothes. Instead of focusing on the location of people’s clothing they should have made more of a discussion of ‘egress’, which means the required by law escape routes, in case of a fire. The article has been fiddled with by too many people on the little things and doesn’t work well as a whole. One of the earlier versions of this article had a well detailed history that was quite fascinating, but was later edited by several people and became an uncoordinated mess.

Assessment of Canadian encyclopedia
The Canadian encyclopedia article was very organised and written by a “legend” of his field. Each section was headed properly and then followed by a well thought out summery. It is old and dated but much of the article’s worth is in its history. In comparison to the rest of the article the last paragraphs seems to ramble from the last topic to a halt. Likely it was because the author was writing about his present, which is always harder to be clear and concise. The man the wrote the article died in 2001, meaning the article must come from some time before then.

Conclusion
The Wikipedia article was created by amateurs and the article reflects that. The Canadian Encyclopedia Article was written by a professor who “legendary” in that field. It too reflected the ability of its creator, meaning it was very, very good when seen in contrast with the Wikipedia. Therefore, it is now clear, Wikipedia is great for a quick casual question, but it is best to use an authoritative site such as the Canadian Encyclopedia, when answering a formal question.