Articles to be
expanded
- · organized by date
- · goes back 5 years starting January 2007
Stub Categories
- · organized by importance
- · stubs=categories involving time period and genre
- · category- organized alphanumerically
- o ex. music- album
Using Public Discourse Terms I set out to get a feeling of how developed Wikipedia's content is
11.
Universal language-needs additional citations for verification
2.
Exigence- redirected: Exigent circumstance in United States law
3.
Audience- needs additional citations
4.
Constraints- not included in public sphere genre
5.
Stasis- covered in rhetorical sphere, redirected to: Inventio
6.
Question of value- does not exist
7.
Public discourse- redirected to public sphere
8.
Materiality- redirected to Materiality (digital text)
9.
Identity construction- does not exist
10.Subgenre- redirected
to genre
11. Fact of definition-
does not exist, suggests facts
12.Translation- fully developed page
Part Two
Now to put a Wikipedia Article to the test!
... that retired U.S. Army Lieutenant
General Benjamin
Freakley (pictured) served under General
David Petreaus during Operation Iraqi
Freedom, and later commanded the 10th Mountain
Division in Afghanistan?
•
What kinds of sources does the article you are assessing use?
· Publications
o
The North Virginia
Daily
o
Army Times
o
American Forces Press
Service
o
West Point Grad News
2010
o
New York Times
· Books
o
In the Company of
Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat
•
Are any other sources
unreliable or not well-respected? Why do you think so? Are there any you are
unsure of? Why?
· Not sure if The North Virginia Daily is well
respected because I am not sure where they get their facts. Also, the
Lieutenant is from Virginia so their reports could be biased.
· Jefferson Community College- although it is an
institution’s publication
· Arizona State University- could be unreliable because
Lieutenant Freakley is alumni and they want to portray their alumni as
successful and structured (especially since Arizona State University won the #1
party school in America, followed by yours truly FSU)
•
Check five individual
facts in the article against the sources. Are the facts reported correctly in
Wikipedia? If not, what is incorrectly reported?
1.
Fact: Freakley invaded Iraq a second time during Operation
Iraqi Freedom.= yes. New York Times reported this and the two other sources
used the fact in a parallel manner.
2.
Fact: during Operation Desert Shield, Freakley worked on
the war plans. Fact reported by the North
Virginia Daily. The issue lies in that the three criteria for definitions
of source are not covered. We have a link to the piece and the authors name but
no proof that the publisher, Mike Gochenour, is a reliable source.
3.
Fact: After retiring from the Army,
Freakley became a professor at Arizona State University and special advisor to
the university's president. The fact is reported correctly as Arizona State University’s Presidential
Office webpage states that Freakley as the first advisor to the president of
the university.
4.
Fact: In 2007. Freakley took command
of Accessions Command, where he remained until he retired in 2012. The fact is
supported by three sources: The North
Virginia Daily, Army News, and Army Public Affairs. The first two sources
could be incredible sources due to their lack of citation to a credible
publisher or source. Army Public Affairs is
published directly by the Army hence, is a credible source.
5.
Fact: After Iraq, Freakley became the
Chief of Infantry at Fort Benning. Fact correctly presented according to the
United States Army website.
· Do you think the information in this article is generally
reliable based on your analysis of the sources? Why or why not?
·
I believe this information is generally reliable as the majority
of the information comes directly from the United States Army. Also, the
various institutional periodicals that are included in the Wikipedia article lead the reader to a firm and reliable
understanding of the article. Some statements can be classified as statements
of opinion as the articles were published in Freakley’s hometown but Wikipedia includes the Army in the
citation of the statements. Wikipedia’s page on identifying reliable
sources states that “the more widespread and consistent this use, the stronger
the evidence.
· Based on the level of detail
· The article has a lot
of details of the Lieutenants history. His career was meticulously documented
by the government agency that he worked for. The Army would not publicly lie
about participation in battle or award. Wikipedia
asserts that tertiary sources should not be used in place of secondary
sources for detailed discussion. The Freakley Wikipedia page uses both tertiary and primary sources hence should
be deemed as credible.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed/confused/startled/offended/hungry? Read on!
Analysis
Editing a Wikipedia page is probably more difficult than you think it
is. According to Wikipedia policy
unprotected articles can be edited by anyone with Internet access. Wikipedia keeps this open editing
monolith in check by keeping strict sourcing guidelines that aim to keep the
information reliable via the validation of the author’s- who can be anonymous-
citations. To be considered a reliable source for a Wikipedia article it must embody three characteristics: a cited
article, a clear creator/author, and the publisher of the work. Using these
three criteria Wikipedia distinguishes
reliable articles from those containing fallacies and possibly even lies. The
Benjamin Freakley article
demonstrates how tertiary (secondary) sources aid in establishing credibility. I
thought it would be interesting to analyze this American Lieutenants
biographical article because of the diverse citations compromised of government
and non-government sources. “While specific facts may be taken from primary
sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred” (Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia). As a participant
in higher education I cannot think of a more reliable source than a public
government article but now understand how fallacies can be a product of lazy
argumentation (Jones 172).
Jones’
piece: Finding the Good Argument states:
“most people do not realize they are committing fallacies when they create an
argument” (Jones 172). It suggests a 10 rules for creating solid arguments. The
Benjamin Freakley Wikipedia article
is a sound example of the correct use of rules 4, 5, 8, and 10. Rule 4 focuses
on how the evidence used in rhetoric must relate to the standpoint. This
article keeps a neutral standpoint throughout the biographical account of
Benjamin Freakley. When his badges and medals were mentioned the article does
not insinuate any connection to ethos, which could cloud the purpose of the
article- to inform. Rule 5 focuses on the false representation of information.
The claim that Freakley is a special advisor to the University of Arizona’s
president is parallel to his title on the University of Arizona’s webpage.
The
effective use of multiple sources is supported by Bazerman’s Techniques of
Intertextual Representations. The Wiki article
lies on Bazerman’s third level of intertextuality: “mentioning of a person,
document, or statements” (Bazerman 88). The article uses the readers’
familiarity with the Army as a foundation to establish credibility while using
other media outlets to show the reciprocity of the information- simultaneously
building credibility. Citing both the tertiary and primary source supports the
idea that the second author can expand- as they did- his or her ideas with out
having to worry about the credibility of the facts that make up their arguments
(not present in the Wikipedia article).
Works Cited
Bazerman, Charles. Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on
Other Texts'. University of California, Santa Barbara, Print.
Jones, Rebecca. Finding the Good Argument. Diss. Parlor
Press, 2010. Print.
"Identifying Reliable Sources." Wikipedia:
The Free Encyclopedia.Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.22 July 2004. Web. 27 Feb.2013.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_rel iable_sources >
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