A new way of writing papers
I sat down today to write a paper for an art history class. In order to gain some bearing the first thing I did was to google my topic. Naturally this brought me to wikipedia.org, don't get me wrong; Wikipedia is defiantly not a research worthy site but what if it were?
What if this is the way we write research papers in the future, instead of laying claim to our knowledge we allow everyone the right to our discoveries in order to further the whole collective of human knowledge. Wikipedia could become the library of tomorrow, allowing people to better search criteria, full searchable text, not just titles and subjects but the whole article.
When a student writes a research paper, they could automatically look at what someone else has done and expand on a segment, or choose a different angle completely. I think in education we spend too much time doing repetitive practices, instead of learning from what others have already done and using that as a jump off point. I am not negating the idea of practicing one's discipline to be efficent and skilled at their chosen craft, I just think that we spend too much time rehashing the same topics.
Let's say for example I were to do a paper on George Ohr, famous potter from Biloxi Mississippi, and I were to publish it on wikipedia then anyone else who were to write a paper on him would then be able to see my research and where my information came from and expand on my reactions and thinking.
Maybe I am just a dreamer of democratizing information and grades. Oh well...
