User:RM395/Course/Encyclopedia comparisons/eng395jy

Topic

I chose to do my article comparison on Les Paul, the person, not the guitar by Gibson. I compared the Wikipedia article to the article in the current Britannica encyclopedia.

Thoroughness and Organization.

Both the Britannica and Wikipedia articles featured a lot of biographical information about Les. The Britannica article was only three paragraphs and briefly mentioned his invention of the solid-body guitar, among some of his other inventions, but mainly worked through a quick chronological succession of his life events. This included his personal life, including mention of his wife Mary Ford. The article concludes stating Paul's induction into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

The Wikipedia article follows a similar chronological path to the Britannica, but is much more in depth. It begins with articles like "Early Life" and "Early Career", but then divides the other aspects of his life into several sub-articles. There is a totally separate article about his guitar building, and his association with Gibson guitars in creating the Gibson Les Paul model. There is a totally separate article about his innovations in multi-track recording. There is also a long-winded section about all of the awards Les Paul won in his lifetime, several of which are within the last 5 years and completely unmentioned in the Britannica. And finally, at the bottom of the article is an in depth display of Paul's extensive discography, showing dozens of albums and singles he has appeared on.

Presentation

I think the primary difference between the two articles is that the Britannica tries to tie in several pieces of interest into a quick article about Les Paul, whereas the Wikipedia article is compromised of several small subjects that pertain to the man and his life in one way or another. The Britannica is plain and simple, with one image of Les Paul from 2008, one year before he died. The Wikipedia article features several photos of Les Paul throughout his life, as well as images of his signature guitar among other things. The links embedded in the Wiki article are great too because there is so much information about Gibson guitars and multitrack recording that can be linked right from the page, and also the pages of other well-known musicians that Les Paul was closely associated with or who he played on recordings with.

Overall Judgment

I think there are both advantages and disadvantages of both articles.

The Britannica is definitely well-written and usable as a reliable sources. Still, it tries to pack a lot of information very briefly into a subject that requires a lot of content. It seems a bit rushed and random while reading through it, but provides a clear-cut idea of the kind of person Les Paul was.

The Wikipedia article is definitely stronger in terms of content because it features a vast amount of information about Les and his accomplishments. That said, perhaps there is more than is needed or it is off-topic at times even though the subject matter does have a fair amount to do with Les himself. The Wiki article would be difficult to cite sources from because the depth of all the information comes from all over the place.--Eng395jy (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)