User:RM395/Course/Encyclopedia comparisons/Seannator

American Civil War: Wikipedia vs 11th Britannica
I love researching about historic wars, and as expected there tends to be wealth of information wherever you look on these topics. I tend to favor an easy breakdown of all this information from a timeline of the events to more specific details on particular events and how they connect.

Ironically the Britannica's information immediately came off as just being really dense. I will say that I appreciate the way the Wikipedia article broke down the information. It actually covers events that occur BEFORE the war leading up to it, and explores related events that didn't happen exactly during the time of war but was vital enough in directly influencing something in the war or the war itself. Admittedly I found the Britannica information to be an impenetrable wall of text. The Wikipedia article definitely wins for both amount of information coupled with the way it sectioned itself for accessible reading. And while I do like having a general timeline that outlines what occurs during this historic event, Britannica quite literally gives paragraphs of major events in chronological order.

This is just a benefit that Wikipedia has. It is able to give a leaner timeline with links that lead to expanded articles on events should you choose to read up more on that particular event, but can easily continue to read on the general overview of the event as a whole. I kind of get a sense that the Wikipedia article reads things from the Union, i.e. the winning side's point of view, more than the Confederates'. I don't think there is truly any bias going on here really, it's just that living in the South gives one perspectives in the modern day when people still judge us with the Mason Dixon line and it's annoying.

I really enjoyed AP US History in high school, and interestingly enough we had such a huge textbook that I never found myself looking to Wikipedia while in that class. I'm pleased to find that most of the events that lead up to and caused the American Civil War to happen are actually covered in the Wikipedia page. I was rather surprised at just how straightforward the Britannica was. I looked up the Civil War and got exactly the Civil War. It gave a quick summary of events that occurred right around the instigation of the war, and then jumped to event after event until the end. I was happy to see the Wiki article make references to Lincoln's policies at the time, which no doubt held major influence over the events to come, as well as references (and links) to the clashing of cultures that occurred. This did allow the article to offer two point of views that crossed during the American Civil War.

I can't honestly say as a teacher, or for my teacher in high school, that the Britannica page would be better for teaching students than the Wikipedia page. Our textbook was jammed full of information in a somewhat dry manner similar to that of Britannica, but even it encompassed information that wrapped around just the events of the war from leaders' influences, cultural and social leanings, and political debates that occurred years before the war started. Honestly if the Wikipedia article was to be verified by professionals as well as its sources, and adding in more information to events and whatnot that it links to, it would be an all-encompassing study of the Civil War that would surpass that textbook I used in high school.

--Seannator (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)