At first, when the Wikipedia article was assigned, I felt nervous and slightly overwhelmed. I decided to write an article on the US Patent Law as it is a field I am interested in. I believed it would be easier to research on something that was of personal interest to me. After a vast amount of research, I sat in front of the Wiki page puzzled by the “formatting.” However, it was fairly simple and easy to use after the first 10 or 15 minutes. I did struggle to upload a photo on to Wiki, and still haven’t been successful. I was proud to be able to contribute to Wiki and it gave me a good sense of accomplishment. Most class assignments end with a satisfaction of a letter grade and comment from the professor, this particular one was more meaningful. I felt I had contributed knowledge, and in the process learned a lot myself.
My wiki article didn’t undergo much change in its content. I don’t know how many people actually saw it, this would be nice to know. Viewing the history, I see my article has been added to various categories. Furthermore, “US” has been changed to “United States,” and edits have been done on capitalization, spacing and italics. From the history I can determine that 8 people have made some changes and edited it. It was nice that someone made the effort to upload a picture of the first US Patent, it was something I had wanted to do initially. The history page also denotes that the same people have revisited and made changes. Perhaps, this is due to the topic, which is not very entertaining or catchy.
The discussion page states that the article is within the scope of wiki Biography, and that a fact from my article appeared on the “did you know section” of wiki’s main page on April 25th. I tried to find it, but wasn’t able too.
Although the class is over, and we have received our grades for this assignment, I will continue to monitor my article. I am glad I was able to contribute in some way to Wikipedia and I hope my article will be able to help someone who does wants facts on the United States Patent Law. This was definitely an important and meaningful assignment. It’s nice to know, that your efforts in class, have given you more than just a grade! Thank you professor Boggs!
