Our group picked the ice skater, Sonja Henie, to research. The article in Encyclopedia Americana was brief and filled with nothing but facts. No pictures accompanied the article. The language was very sterile and encyclopedic in feel. On wikipedia, the language was much more colorful and descriptive. There was much more information about her life and other talents and accomplishments. Also, some controversial information about her was exposed. We were concerned that the only reference listed in the site was one book written about her. There was a discrepancy as to the age she won the Norwegian championship. According to Marsha’s extensive knowledge of skating, wikipedia is actually right. When we looked at Enclyclopedia Brittanica, we became very frustrated with the site. It was very hard to navigate and hard to even find the article about Henie. The information was not much more extensive than what was in Americana, so I do not see any point in messing with it again, unless information on a subject is impossible to find somewhere else. We did notice that the language in Britannica was more colorful than the language in Americana. Overall, I appreciated the wikipedia site.
June 16, 2009
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