AVerySeriousUsername

Bio

About me

I'm a Running Start student, and I have many different hobbies. I play Euphonium in my school's wind ensemble, and I've been playing for about 5 years. I also play tennis on my school's team, and I'm going out for varsity in the upcoming season. Besides that I am very committed to my education, and thus spend a lot of time on it. I have two puppies, one Pomeranian named Bandit and one Tibetan Mastiff named Zara. Tibetan Mastiffs are very good family dogs, and we got Zara as a guard dog since their breed is very good at that. I like to play a lot of video games but my favorites are anything Nintendo, Assasin's Creed, Stardew Valley, and Minecraft.

My Wikipedia interests

If I use Wikipedia later on I'll probably be mostly using it for school, to get sources or the like. I don't have a lot of niche knowledge about any topics, so I feel as if I wouldn't have much to add to a page if I were to edit one.

Article Evaluation

Not all articles on Wikipedia are reliable. In order to be trustworthy, the article must follow Wikipedia’s guidelines, in addition to providing helpful sources to back up the information. I visited the Marysville Getchell High School page of Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: each fact is not quoted with a reliable or appropriate source, there are dead links, and the article is worded similar to an advertisement.

Reliable and Appropriate sources

There is definitely information included in the Marysville Getchell Wikipage, but not all of the facts they’ve listed have a reliable source. For example, they say: “To accommodate future expansion, extra classrooms were added to each building and outdoor rooftop decks were designed to permit enclosure.” They also included, “The expansive windows provide views between interior spaces and to the forests outside.” Neither of these claims have a source they seem to be linked to. Of course, as a member of the school, I know these things are true, but that isn’t how Wikipedia works. This is an example of original research, a direct violation of one of Wikipedia’s main policies.

Dead Links

Secondly, this article contains links that are no longer usable. A couple of the links I found were sources 3 and 7. Source 3 is a Marysville Globe article, and is a resource for the claim that “The four schools were previously operated as academies within Marysville Pilchuck High School (MPHS), which had a student population of nearly 3,000 at the time.” Source 7 is a website called Brainspaces, and is supporting the claim that “The facility has received several design awards, including the 2011 Council of Educational Facilities Planners International's James D. MacConnell Award, an international award for excellence in school design.” Without up to date sources, these claims go unsupported, and this becomes a “trust me” level article; not part of a reliable encyclopedia.

Advertising word choice

Lastly, the article is worded as if it were an advertisement. It consists of a list of only the school’s best factors, including a green features section that explains that the school’s measures to go green “represent projected annual savings of nearly 353,000 kilowatt-hours and projected annual savings of $27,705 in electricity costs.” These claims release a sense of heavy bias, and go against another one of Wikipedia’s guidelines: neutrality.

Conclusion

In review, the Marysville Getchell High School Wikipedia page has three major faults: each fact is not quoted with a reliable or appropriate source, there are dead links, and the article is more of an ad than anything. These aspects of the article go against two of Wikipedia’s guidelines: original research and neutrality. This article needs to gain sources, update the ones currently available, and have a neutral tone in order to be a trustworthy source.