User:Binky1110/Content gap discussion

An important concern when editing an existing Wikipedia articles or creating a Wikipedia article is a content gap. A content gap is where a portion of information on a topic is missing from an article.When doing research, readers are expecting to be able to find all the information they are looking for within these articles, which makes content gaps a major issue. More specifically, a content gap can be when information about a topic during a specific time period from within a timeline is missing from an article. A possible way to identify a content gap is to follow a timeline of the events within the area of study or the findings in this study to see what time period or what material may have been overlooked or withheld. A content gap may arise for a number of reasons, one being that there may be some biased in that area or time period of the topic. Hence, the person who was writing or editing the article on this topic decided not to include that information. Also, a content gap may arise because of a lack of research or experimentation done during that time or in that area of the topic. This could have lead to the writer not having enough information to include, resulting in a content gap. Lastly, a content gap can also be the result of the writer not doing enough research themselves. The writer may have found information on the topic when it first came about and what it is now but didn't do any research on the changes in between those times. This leads to another major issue on Wikipedia, who the writers and editors are.

Furthermore, it is important who writes on Wikipedia for a few different reasons. The main reason is that having trolls writing on Wikipedia can lead to misleading and biased information being included in articles, and people who decide to read these articles for papers or even personal research will take this wrong information. It also matters who writes on Wikipedia because the articles should be well written as far as vocabulary, grammar, and the order that things are written. Having an inexperienced or beginner level writer writing on Wikipedia will lead to a lot of articles being put out that need drastic editing because of things like content gaps for example.

To extend on the idea of bias, (but you haven't brought up bias yet) according to Wikipedia, being "unbiased" is keeping your personal views out of the articles that we write or edit and simply writing the information that is out there on what ever topic we choose. This is different from the definition of bias that everyone refers to when writing essays because that bias is basically saying that you can include your personal views, but you always have to state the other side. Unlike on Wikipedia where you have to completely exclude your personal opinion, this type of bias is mainly about always including your views and the other views that are out there. (that's a good point)

Overall, content gaps can have a major effect on the effectiveness of an article and the information that it makes available for readers. Making sure that there are reliable editors on Wikipedia is the main way to prevent content gaps in articles, as well as the other benefits such as limiting the amount of editing that articles need after they are published. Lastly, making sure that we keep in mind Wikipedia's definition of bias and unbiased can aid in how well we edit and add information to the articles that we find interest in.

I've added some comments (look in the parentheses) and I edited the first sentence. But you have improved significantly over last week in your writing. I'm going to email you a ppt on the 5 paragraph essay. You should have used that structure. Dr Ashton (talk) 17:47, 24 September 2018 (UTC)