This or That? A Comparison of Wikipedia articles

The two articles I chose to examine were both related to public discourse, but as far apart as possible from each other in terms of completion and quality. 

The first article I chose was the page titled “Private Sphere.” As it is related to my class and my class research, I thought it might have some interesting information. However, the page only provided me two paragraphs of information on the private sphere. I have a brief definition of what the private sphere is, as well as an example, and an idea about the private sphere from a philosopher. Despite the little amount of information, it seemed fairly solid and there was no contradiction. Many of the words in the paragraphs were hyper linked to other wiki pages that were useful and could expand more on rhetorical spheres and unknown terms. The information all came from one source, a book by a man name Jürgen Habermas. As there was no information on the author, nor research from any other source, and possibility of this article being a reliable source were slim. However, Wikipedia did mark the article as incomplete so there is a chance for it to be finished and filled with more than one reliable source.

The second artcile I chose was a biography of Martin Heidigger, a philosopher and author. The page is extensive, providing information about Heidigger's early years, his books, his influences his philosophies on religion, and even his associations with Nazism in World War II. There are multiple photos with small bit of corroborating information below to support the information given in the article. Similar to the article on the private sphere, this page had many hyper-links to lead to other pages, and the information was solid and did not contradict itself. Unlike the first article, however, the page on Heidigger had a much more rounded set of sources. The information on the Wikipedia page came from over one hundred sources, many of which were journals, books by well accredited authors, and reliable web sites. The page seemed complete in its entirety and looked to be quite a reliable source of information.

 While Wikipedia does have some unreliable pages, there are others that can prove useful. I think the usefulness of a Wiki page depends entirely on its number of legitimate sources, such as known authors and journal publications.