I would choose Wikipedia, an open-source online encyclopaedia. To be honest, I am not really recognize the advantages and disadvantages about encyclopaedia Brittanica. Wikipedia is my first choice when I want to search information on the Internet. Wikipedia is a totally free encyclopaedis on the Internet. It is open for everyone. All people are allowed to copy it, modify it and edit it. It is free and no restrain for users. Also, it is open to the international and welcome different knowledge and information from different people over the world. Moreover, Wikipedia is an undoubtedly successful encyclopaedia to create a place for people to exchange and communicate knowledge with others who you never meet.
On the contrary, Brittanica is not open to everyone. It just allow people who are experts or scholars. Although those information maybe more convincing than Wikipedia, it doesn't mean that experts or scholars are 100% convincing. Some knowledge may be specialized that experts or scholars do not know. However, professionals may not be right every times.If this open to the public, everyone can participate in adding information that they know. It encourages people to discuss and discover some new ideas from knowledge.
What is more, Wikipedia is a totally free encyclopaedia for users to add or update any information. However, Brittanica just accepts some customers who had paid the costs, to add or read some advanced level information. Therefore, anyone who wants to share some more detail and deeper knowledge, he/she must pay the fees first. It seems trouble and obviously dividing users into rich and poor classes. So that, there are reasons to explain my thought.
I get your point that Wikipedia is free and therefore appears to be more user-friendly to the public. But would you agree that sometimes Wiki is kind of too accessible for everyone, what makes their information not so reliable? Though Brittanica needs to pay to explore, their authenticity seems stronger, because sources are all come from experts. Doesn't it more persuasive for the users?
回覆刪除Conroy, what you've missed is the fact that many experts DO contribute to wikipedia -- it isn't totally the case that one encyclopedia is by experts and the other isn't. Try to find more *evidence* about the relative accuracy of the 2 encyclopedias
回覆刪除Carol