Week 6: Copy and Paste Literacy? and Perils and Pitfalls of Wikipedia

http://www.alicechristie.org/classes/530/copypasteliteracy.pdf

This article discusses the literacy practices in the production of a MySpace profile. Hundreds of people have a MySpace profile. Many are teenagers. Having the ability to create this type of communication page is exciting to most teenagers, especially when they get to create their own "background" and images. To create this type of page, you must use a "copy and paste" theory, which is not new to anyone. This copy and paste idea has been around for years. It's just a new way for people, especially teenagers to use the concept. By creating a profile, it gives teens a sense of creativity and power into how to create a webpage without all of "technical" stuff. Instead of looking down on websites like MySpace, let's embrace it and look at it for what it really does do for teens.

http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/the-perils-and-pitfalls-of-wikipedia

Is Wikipedia a creditable source of information? Well according to this article, it depends. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort that relies on community volunteers—not paid fact-checkers—to contribute and validate its information. Anyone can write and edit articles in Wikipedia at any time. When I first heard about Wikipedia I thought it was a great source of information, but after researching and hearing more about it, it makes me wonder just how much of the information is accurate. You would hope that people using Wikipedia would use it to benefit readers, not to just put inaccurate information for people to question. I definitely use Wikipedia less often and look for better, more creditable sources of information.