I’ve used Wikipedia as a reference (with caution). Articles range from book-length to a few phrases or sentence fragments hastily strung together. Some have warning signs at the beginning noting the lack of reference citations, and very few (allegedly) are given the distinction of being “Featured” articles. I say allegedly because I have yet to come across one of these Wiki-Pulitzer winning pieces.
Having done some academic writing where the use of references and citations are second nature, I asked myself, “Well, how hard can this be?”
Yeah… I was under the assumption that writing a Wikipedia article was roughly the same as writing an article in a word document. Those reading this who have written for Wikipedia should be ROFL. I will not delve into the particulars, but suffice it to say that I was sizing up my window to see if the computer would fit through. Luck for my computer there are child guards on the windows.
Anyhow, I wrote a brief article (which I think was demoted technically to a “list”). Wikipedia allows any registered member to edit any article. So, before the work is no longer completely original, check it out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_on_United_States_Bank_Notes