Wikipedia and digital exploration

Did you know that UCF is home to the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy? I was just frolicking through Wikipedia, browsing and creatively editing the information provided about UCF, when my click happiness brought me to the FIEA page. This is a UCF sponsored program that helps students develop their expertise video game designers, programmers, designers, and artists.

Self disclosure time: it makes me really happy when I get to overtly play video/computer games at work. How very exciting then that Wikipedia links to four different computer games developed by FIEA cohorts. However, with every silver lining there is a fateful flaw and I discovered that it would take an hour to download the file. My attention span doesn’t allow for waiting an hour so I continued clicking on my merry way.

While my fingers manipulate the digital opportunities, in the back of my mind I am trying to develop a presentation for one of my classes. The topic: glocalization. Thirteen key strokes later and I am reading the Wikipedia page on “glocalization.” The definition offered agrees with the academic definitions that I have read and two of my in-class readings are cited, so with growing confidence my eyes roam down the page to the notes and external links sections. So I immediately copy all the text from Wikipedia and paste it into my paper. There, I am finished. NOT! (Gratuitous 80s verbiage).

For one, that would be plagiarism, which is a great way to assassinate your academic and ethical credibility. Secondly, Wikipedia is a good sounding board but it is a lousy final authority. The information on Wikipedia only serves to verify that my synthesis of my research (using academic articles and texts) is on target. Third, the scope of the Wikipedia information doesn’t even begin to address the dimensions of the glocalization project I am putting together.

I’ve been slogging through some Roland Robertson, his nearly unreadable book has drained precious hours from my life, so I click the hotlink to his Wikipedia page, hoping against the odds that I will find some clarification. Thwarted again, the information provided here is incomplete and fragmented.

Now, so far, none of the information I have come across has been inaccurate. Well, you may be petulantly pouting, why then is Wikipedia not a good source? Beyond the incomplete, fragmented, contradictory, and occasionally flaming information available on Wikipedia – it is also just plain lazy. Research at the collegiate level is supposed to reflect at least an inkling of original thought. And I hate to break it to you, but original thought only comes after original research. Regurgitating lines of inquiry that you have ‘discovered’ on Wikipedia doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance of approaching original research. The second question that is possibly bouncing through your cranium is, how can I do original research? I’m not going to write a book I just need information for my project.

Original research means finding the obvious sources and developing an original line of inquiry. For example, glocalization is my topic, but I want to study glocalization through the paradigm of texts and technology. By combining my research on glocalization and texts and technology I have developed a unique line of inquiry, but one that still needs to be refined. I caught an article in the Orlando Sentinel last week about the race to build a children’s hospital in Orlando and I begin to wonder how this could be integrated into my interest in glocalization, texts, and technology. All of the sudden I have an original line of research to pursue. I’m not the first one to use these sources or to consider these ideas, but I am the first one that I know of to utilize them in this combination.

So remember, using Wikipedia in your academic papers is a lot like taking a set of clothes on a hanger out to the movies as your date. You can do it, but it would work out a lot better if that set of clothes was filled out with something more substantial.

Computer monkeying yours,

Grad Student Christine

cbatson@mail.ucf.edu

RefWorks - bringing me one step closer to never having to leave the couch!

Last week I gushed about Google, and I will gush about Google again, but this week let’s take an academic approach and scratch the surface of one of the web based resources offered by UCF’s library.

Top 3 Reasons why I love the UCF Libraries Homepage:

1) I don’t have to leave home to search the catalogue and databases, manage my sources, or use inter-library loan (ILL).
2) I can wear my pajama bottoms, hot pink cut-off, reminiscent of the 1980s t-shirt, and drink my own coffee while executing the above actions.
3) I don’t have to leave home.

How to start using library resources from home: Sign in for off-campus access

RefWorks
Creating a works cited or bibliography page is not exciting. Often, I leave it as the last, neglected part of my paper. The part that I scramble to finish 40 minutes before the paper is due. Well, the old me did that anyways. The new and improved data management me uses RefWorks for my citation management needs.

RefWorks is your one stop resource for keeping track of the works you have cited. You can manually input your sources, working your way down a form that asks you to supply the author, title, publication, and etc. information. Or, when you do a search in the library catalogue or through the SFX journal search, you will notice a button that gives you the option of exporting the source to RefWorks. Click on that and you are halfway to being done with your works cited page. Once you have inputted or imported the sources you want to use, simply click the “Bibliography” button. Select your output style. This can be a little confusing because there are so many style choices, but I find that MLA 6th ed. – no casing style works the best for my needs. Once you have made this decision, click the “Create Bibliography” button and bammo: you have your bibliography. It was painless!

Granted, it takes about 30 minutes to get familiar with the program, so if you are doing the last minute paper scramble, give yourself about an hour to get your first RefWorks generated works cited list together.

How do you access RefWorks you wonder, scratching your chin and gazing thoughtfully at your monitor? Quite simple really friend; from the library homepage:

http://www.library.ucf.edu/

you click “Cite a Source?” under the “How Do I?” menu. When the new page loads, scroll down and click on the “Citation Software” link. Once there, you have the option of running four different software packages. This week we focused on RefWorks although feel free to sample the other software packages and report back to grad student Christine.

That’s all for this week! Do you have questions, comments, or concerns about RefWorks? Let me know! Do you have a beloved web application that makes your life easier, better, and more digitally in-demand? Let me know!

I know I said I was going to talk about Wikipedia this week - but it got back burnered by my affection for RefWorks. Stay tuned for next week's post on Wikipedia and its torrid affair with academia.

-Salud
Christine

Welcome to What IF Web

What if you were working in an office at UCF whose mission was to help students learn to integrate the digital and the academic? Then you would be me, grad student Christine and you would be working at the Office of Information Fluency. That said:

What if this was a running blog on my adventures with Google, Pandora, Del.ic.ious, Wikis, anti broken computer free-ware and all that other fun stuff out there? What if people read it? Leave me comments with useful information or fun tips, your feedback matters!

Google:

Google runs my desktop. Not literally because I don’t use the “desktop search” function anymore, not because it wasn’t good, but because it doesn’t fill a need I didn’t know I had. Not like Google Earth. I plot my runs each night, using the “ruler-path” function; getting rough approximations on a street by street level. No more driving to determine my running distance. Mapquesting is so 3 years ago, last stop Las Vegas and the great computer reformatting; I am a total Google Earth convert! I am drinking the kool-aid.

Google Earth brings out everyone’s inner cartographer. I just touch the outer fringes on what the platform can do, but I am getting more literate as I remain enthralled by the constantly updating program. The other day I found that Google lets me plot my photos (which I manage with Picasa) on Google, uploaded to some Google server if I want to go public. Or I can link my photos to Wikipedia if I want to leave a geographic description.

http://www.earth.google.com/

Google can also be great for research. Google Scholar helps me look up books, articles, and various other academic papers. Some books are partially available as e-books and the meta-search often turns up the full article. If you are on campus, or have logged into the library from home, then many articles will display a SFX link: that will take you to the article through our library’s database subscriptions.

http://www.scholar.google.com/

Do you use any Google products? Write me and tell me about how Google runs your computing experience.

Next week – Wikipedia: Why I have feelings for you but you just aren’t reputable enough to be on my works cited page.

-Salud
Christine
(cbatson@mail.ucf.edu)