Mci2014

About

Civil Engineering Student at NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Notes related to Wikipedia work and activities

Article to be copy-edited: Henry Roe Campbell

Language in the article is little bit to hard to follow. it will be better if some sentences where simplified to that level where, people that are not native speakers, can easily understand the article. I would suggest following corrections:

1) "Henry Roe Campbell was born on September 9, 1807 in Woodbury, New Jersey to Amos Campbell, (1779 in Bucks County, Pa; died 1868) and Ann Roe" can be changed to:Henry Roe Campbell was born on September 9, 1807 in Woodbury, New Jersey in the family of Amos Campbell (1779 in Bucks County, Pa; died 1868) and Ann Roe"

2) "Amos Campbell was a bridge builder and of Scottish descent, settled in Pennsylvania in 1837" can be changed to: Amos was of Scottish descent, that settled in Pennsylvania in 1837. His profession was bridge building.

3) "In 1875, Campbell working for Keystone Bridge Company, completed what was then attributed to be the longest swing-span movable bridge (472 feet in length) in the world at Perth Amboy in New Jersey,  but the harsh winter weather of that project eventually caused his demise." Sentence is too long, so needs to be cut somewhere . I would suggest to write as follows: In 1875, the longest swing-span movable bridge (472 feet in length) in the world at Perth Amboy in New Jersey was completed by Campbell. On this project he was working for Keystone Bridge Company. Unfortunately, the harsh winter weather of that project eventually caused his demise.

Improving Existing Article: Arthur Mellen Wellington

The improvements that this article needs are as follows:

1) It is too short and missing lots of information, so needs to be elaborated more.

2) Bibliography needs to be more detailed

3) Legacy section also needs to be more detailed work and better explanation of what each legacy work represented, and how it influence the generations.

4) His career needs to be separate section and needs to have more detailed information on him.

Thinking about Wikipedia

1) The non-engineering view of "Neutrality" and "No original research"

the impacts of Wikipedia is that it gave people more or less unlimited source of knowledge. There is lots of data included in Wikipedia articles. But there also Limits to it. Not every data is reliable. For people that are not civil engineers but are reading the civil engineering articles, its impossible for them to catch the mistake in the technical parts. The only way for them to check if the thing that they are reading is correct is to check the references and consult it as well. But If we go back 100 years, we would not even be talking about the references. it was very different era then. there was no neutrality, everything was mostly biased. Plus I do not think anybody would have spend days to do original research. they would just depict what they had in mind. But if we fast forward 100 years in the future. we expect even stricter ways of writing Wikipedia articles. More Original Researches and Higher neutrality would be included.

2) The Civil Engineers view of "Neutrality" and "No original research"

Speaking form the perspective of the Civil Engineer, there are lots of technical in-competencies in the civil engineering articles. The same articles were written 100 years ago, there would have been scarcity the resources and also not a lot of data about the topic. It would have been hard to write about the engineers all over the world unless you met them, or visited same country. The data would have not been Neutral because of the fact that everybody would have talked highly about themselves and there would have not been the sources to verify it. But the articles from 100 years now would have higher precision and higher reliability sources and data. Since new and new sources are creating the ways to improve the quality of the work. The Wiki platform will be lot bigger and relevant because, people and educational centers will consider it more reliable after the improvements will be made.

Recommendations

The important fact to consider while writing Wikipedia article is to make sure that it is thorough and legit. There are lots of articles that will put information there is incorrect or is missing lots of data. When writing Wikipedia article you need to remember that people are reading it and referencing it into their work, and when you provide false information, anybody that reads it or references it are being misled. When writing article about Civil engineering topics it is good to have Civil Engineer proof read it and make sure that all the technical stuff that you include in your article are correct. You also need to make sure that when writing something, try to elaborate it and include as much data and information about it as you can find. Avoid to write biased articles. Just because you feel certain way or you have certain opinions about the subject matter it does not justify to have the article be expressive of your feelings or opinions. You need to sate the facts and stay away from the opinions. It is good for civil engineers to write lots of engineering articles because first and foremost, we have been trained to be professionals and unbiased. Second, we are people that have been paying attention to smallest detail of everything, therefore we would be able to write everything in details and avoid content gap. But I do not think that it is Civil Engineers job to write articles about the topics such as: the brain surgery, stock market, etc. I think it will be best if every profession will stick to their discipline and write about it only. I do not recommend Civil Engineer writing about Neurotransmitters and then medical student reading about it and thinking it is correct. Just like I would not trust structural design to be explained by medical doctor. So I recommend that when writing the article make sure it is as thorough, unbiased and sophisticated as it can get, and make sure that you are writing about the subject that you know very well.