User:Petey stone/sandbox

Wikipedia Assignment Part 2:

The articles from Wikipedia entitled United States Presidential Election, 2000 is a summary of the eventa that took place in the American election between Republican candidate and son for former U.S. president, George W. Bush and Democratic candidate and vice-president, Al Gore. Bush won the election by five electoral votes and according to the article, there was doubts whether Bush would have won had a recount been allowed due to the controversial nature of Florida's electoral votes.

The encyclopedia used for the comparable article is Encyclopedia Britannica with an article entitled United States Presidential Election of 2000 (United States Government). The article clearly explains the campaign between Republican candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore. The election was very close all around and when it came down to Florida being the deciding state, the Democrats were sure Bush would win, especially when Gore called Bush to concede defeat, though hours later when it became more unclear, Gore phoned Bush back to retract the concession. In the end though, George W. Bush won the election and became the 43rd President of the United States of America.

One of the main differences between the two articles is that the Wikipedia article is much longer than the Encyclopedia Britannica article. One of the reasons for this is that the Wikipedia article goes into much more detail discussing the initial campaign for the representatives for each party with George W. Bush going up against Senator John McCain primarily, whereas the Britannica article does not touch much more on the matter than to say that McCain was the most noteworthy of Republican candidates (McCain would later go on to challenge Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2009 Presidential election.)

The Wikipedia article also discusses how Bush was favored to begin with mainly because of the Clinton sex scandal and many Americans distanced themselves with him and in association, his vice president, Gore. The Britannica article merely states that it seemed as though Bush would be the obvious winner.

Both articles focus on the results and the general voting as opposed to the campaign. The Wikipedia article has a section about the Presidential Debates but only offers links to other articles instead of directly discussing them, while the Britannica article has little or no mention of the debates at all.

The Encyclopedia Britannica article offered no other relevant links to other articles. A "you may also like..." was all that they had, which consisted of links to several irrelevant articles which had little or nothing to do with the presidential election. No resources were listed in the article's bibliography.

The Wikipedia article offers numerous links to other relevant articles like the 2000 senate election, the presidential debates for 2000, Canada's take on the 2000 election, and other United States presidential elections to name a few. The Wikipedia article also offers a list of over seventy references.

Both the Wikipedia article and the Encyclopedia Britannica article did a good job explaining about the 2000 presidential election, though all in all, the Wikipedia one was more informative. It was much longer, being at least twice the length of the Britannica article and went into much more detail.

Both articles were to the point and gave excellent detail regarding the subject. The Wikipedia article gives much more detail though, going into the aftermath and having titles paragraph for things only briefly mentioned in the Britannica article.

United States presidential election, 2000



I plan on focusing on the American Republican party for my Wikipedia assignment and one of the most controversial topics in my lifetime regarding Republicans was George W Bush's 2000 victory over Al Gore. I searched George W Bush on Wikipedia and found the link to the article specifically about the 2000 election referenced above. For the encyclopedic site, I used the Canadian Encyclopedia and did a search of George W Bush, clicking on the first like with a title that referenced the 2000 election.

{^ "Digital Reference" United States presidential election, 2000. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 30 September 2012. Sun. 30 Sept. 2012.}

{^ "Digital Library" ''Florida Voting Fiasco. Maclean's Magazine.'' Maclean's November 27, 2000. Sun. 30 Sept. 2012}

George W. Bush



As stated above, I plan on focusing on the American Republican party, and George W. Bush is a prominent part of the Republican Party's history. I did a Wikipedia search of George W. Bush to find the Wikipedia article. For the encyclopedic article, I used the encyclopedia.com website and searched George W. Bush, going to the link that had summary of his life. Both articles were very detailed though the Wikipedia article was much easier to read as it is dividcd into titled paragraphs.

{^ "Digital Reference" George W. Bush. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 26 September 2012. Sun. 30 Sept. 2012}

{^ Smith, Gaddis. Bush, George. Presidents: A Reference History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 30 Sept. 2012. 

Ronald Reagan



Because I am focusing on the American Republican party, I chose former United States President Ronald Reagan. I searched Ronald Reagan on Wikipedia to find the Wikipedia article. I also searched Ronald Reagan on encyclopedia.com to find the other article. As with the George W. Bush articles, the Wikipedia one was far easier to read due to the material being petter presented with titled paragraphs.

{^ "Digital Reference" Ronald Reagan. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Seotember 2012. Sun. 30 Sept. 2012}

{^ Brinkley, Alan. "Reagan, Ronald." Presidents: A Reference History. 2002. 30 Sept. 2012. 