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What really is Wikipedia?
Throughout history, stories and other forms of literature have evolved time and again, and have helped change the course of knowledge in which humans partake. Theorist Marshall McLuhan set out the course of these media shifts long ago, as “ from orality to print, and from print to electronic.” (Birkerts 154) It seems as though McLuhan was right, in that as the years have gone by and our world shifts into a more electronic age, more and more people are turning to the internet or other electronic mediums to read things, which were previously obtained by print. This new electronic age has brought with it many attributes which make the quality of work one can do within a certain amount of time much more efficient and possibly even more accurate. Wikipedia is such a medium, as being an online encyclopedia, one can find information with just a click of the mouse, which previously would have taken hours to find in books or other print sources. The question still remains to this day, is Wikipedia a legitimate source of literature, and should it be used for study? Literature can be described as writings in which expression and form in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest are characteristic or essential features and analysis is prominent such as in essays, novels or even poetry. Does this describe Wikipedia? I believe not. Although Wikipedia is a web detailed encyclopedia, which does give detailed accounts of almost anyone and anything, it is not a legitimate form of writing. Any legitimate form of writing has an author and or credibility to back the information up which Wikipedia does not have. There is no depth to Wikipedia; it only gives details and facts, it doesn’t describe anything with emotion or critical analysis, and there is no
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ending to any Wikipedia post, it only gives the information to a current date, and has no means to resolve or explain to the reader what will become of the topic being discussed.
On the back cover of any book and under the title of any article or piece of literature online, you will find the author’s name, and sometimes even a little information about the author. This is one of the key elements of literature, as this shows that someone actually wrote the piece of work, and that they credibly cited and took account for the information the reader is reading. If you look at any Wikipedia page on any topic or subject, finding the author will be hard to do. Why is this? Due to the fact there is no author. Wikipedia doesn’t give the name of who edited or wrote the page, and just presents the information. Therefore you do not know if any of the information is right. It is up to the reader to trust that the words they are reading are the actual truth, and that someone didn’t just create a page on a topic in which they had no knowledge of. Wikipedia does cite some of its information, but how do we even know if those articles are legitimate or even correct? As Birkerts has exerted in his views, the electronic age whether we like it or not is taking over literature. Birkerts seems to be skeptical of this takeover, and one of the reasons why is Wikipedia is very easy for anyone to post information to the internet, and with no author cited, Wikipedia seems to be taking the risk of putting its validity on the line for critiquing and analyzing by the public at hand.
In looking back at the definition of literature stated above, one of the first words used is expression. Although Wikipedia does give the facts and details one
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may find necessary for a given topic, a key element in literature which Wikipedia is missing is expression, any critical analysis of why things are they way they are. One of the main reasons why Wikipedia is not considered a form of literature is because it does not give any food for thought, any reasoning on anything. It tells you what is, but it doesn’t say why those things are they way they are. For example, in looking at theorist Marshall McLuhan’s Wikipedia page, one can find many facts about McLuhan’s life, from his views on literature to how many kids he had. But one thing you cannot find is analysis. Why were his views on literature they way they were? Did he experience some sort of childhood trauma that caused him to look at life the way he did? Wikipedia tends to leave critical information such as this out. This can be called flattening of historical perspectives, which Birkerts believed would come with the electronic age of literature, that our “perception of history will inevitably alter” (BIrkerts 129) with the electronic age. One of the major downfalls of Wikipedia is its failure to explain why something is the way it is, instead of just giving you the facts and letting the reader interpret missing information for his or herself.
Another illegitimacy of Wikipedia is the fact that some of the pages of Wikipedia have no ending, basically that they aren’t “finished” in a sense. This defies one of the main points of the definition of literature, the idea of permanence. Wikipedia is updated weekly, sometimes daily and changes as its topics change. The information in Wikipedia may be valid, but with no ending, Wikipedia leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty as to what will happen next, or what is to become
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of said topic. This also ties back into the lack of analysis of Wikipedia, as with an ending, an author may use to wrap up an idea or make some sort of analytical thought, but again with no ending, Wikipedia leaves no possibility for this analysis to be done.
In looking back at why Wikipedia is not a legitimate form of writing, I can see where one might disagree with my argument and vouch for Wikipedia’s legitimacy. After all Wikipedia does include full sentences, and sometimes even full paragraphs to explain information. Wikipedia is basically a print encyclopedia, only larger, and online. And this is where the difference between being real literature and not surface. An encyclopedia is not meant to analyze information; it is more of a tool to use to find out facts and shorter ideas about a topic, not to ask questions about why the topic is the way it is. A work of literature needs to provide the information but also analyze it, give reasoning and give credibility to its readers. Without this credibility Wikipedia is just a large forum where a bunch of information is stated and it’s up to the reader to decided its value to them. A print encyclopedia can be seen as a work of literature because it has writings, ideas, and full sentences, but one must look deeper into the real definition of literature, into the aspects which a work must have to be properly called literature such as analysis, credibility and a reasonable conclusion. These qualities correctly define a work as “literature.”
The value of Wikipedia in an educational sense will be debated for years to come. It is very ease to use, so it has become more and more popular over recent years, and some even look to it as a legitimate form of writing. Wikipedia is a nice
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source to use to look up facts and other short blurbs, but it is not a legitimate form of writing. It is missing all the major elements of literature, and although it may appear to have a few of literature’s qualities such as universal ideas and their connectedness to other topics, it does not have the basic fundamental aspects of writing in credibility, analysis, and a plausible conclusion. This is why Wikipedia may be a lot of things, but a legitimate form of literature is not one of them.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: the Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994. Print.
