"Fratitude." You can thank one of my friends for coining that term. All she had to do was add it into Urban Dictionary, an online slang dictionary. And this was done at her own computer.
Urban Dictionary is another place where anyone can submit their own words and information, like "fratitude."Photo: Urban Dictionary
Weird, right? Wrong. This action of citizen journalism is becoming more common today. In fact, other Web sites like Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia, are famous for collecting and providing information. But can these cites really be trusted? I think not.
Wikipedia has editors; editors who check for grammatical and punctuation errors. If you submit information without references, it says it MAY be removed. But anyone can submit articles…and I mean ANYONE, meaning people of all ages and social and cultural backgrounds. Which pretty much makes sense since it is considered citizen journalism.
But who is to say that the references used in a Wikipedia article are accurate? While it does provide a resource used all around the world, I think we should leave it to the professionals to provide the information. Wikipedia is continually updated throughout the day and I wouldn't trust some random person's opinion over someone who has been spending their life researching a subject and gets beaten out by this random person just because they submit an ill-researched article to Wikipedia first.
Professors usually discourage the use of Wikipedia as a source for research papers.Photo: Meghan Murphy
When I write a paper, it's not about finding resources in a quick and easy way. I take the time to research accurate articles because it's not quick and easy for a professional to write a research article. And by accurate I mean professional articles from professional databases.
So while those volunteers submitting their articles to Wikipedia may think they have major "fratitude," I think they should second-guess themselves and their actions.
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