A lot of times when you go onto Google to search something just for curiosity's sake, the first result from your search is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is almost always at the top of the list when you are searching the web for casual information. Wikipedia always gets a bad rep especially from your teachers and peers telling you "Anyone can put information on Wikipedia it's not accurate." It is true that anyone can put information on Wikipedia because...I just did today. I researched Kashin-Beck disease from peer-reviewd journals and I edited the Kashin-Beck disease page on Wikipedia. I wrote and posted the first two paragraphs on the Kashin-Beck disease Wikipedia stub. Have a look! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashin%E2%80%93Beck_disease
Because I got all of my information from primary literature I can assure you that information I added is accurate. A lot of the information on Wikipedia today do have citations and you can usually find the original article(s) that the information came from if you wanted to verify its validity. Although Wikipedia is not the first place you should go when doing a research project, it is an excellent place just to gather casual information and become more informed on different subjects easily and quickly. Remember if you ever encounter a Wikipedia page with information that you do not agree with, you can always "change it." You are not however, allowed to spam, or you will get banned from Wikipedia.
This was a very interesting assignment editing a Wikipedia stub. I have to agree with http://fancynancyales.blogspot.com/ who says that editing a Wikipedia stub allows you "to contribute to a large body of knowledge." I do feel a little bit accomplished after updating the Wikipedia stub knowing that potentially thousands of people may read my addition. I am not sure how long my post on Wikipedia will last before somebody else decides to edit it. I at least know that for a small amount of time I made a small difference on Wikipedia. I shall sleep well tonight.
