Digital Knowledge Sharing

 

What is a brief history of the encyclopedia?

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from all branches of knowledge. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years; the oldest still in existence, Naturalis Historia, was written in ca. 77 CE by Pliny the Elder. The modern encyclopedia evolved out of dictionaries around the 17th century. Historically, some encyclopedias were contained in one volume, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the world´s largest Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana, became huge multi-volume works. Some modern encyclopedias are electronic and are often freely available, for example Wikipedia.


What are some key features of that encyclopedia
According to Wikipedia:
Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries, which are usually accessed by article name^. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. It is like generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information to cover the thing or concept for which the article name stands.Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come.

According to Encyclopedia Brittannica:

Encyclopædia is a general knowledge English-language Encyclopedia that is available in print, as a DVD and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors. It is regarded as one of the most scholarly of encyclopaedias. It divided the paper work into several parts; some of the contents are totally scientific and force on the art. Because of the encyclopaedias will force on different aspects at different period of time. So that the information will be concentrate on very specific topics. 

Which encyclopedia was most useful for this research?

In this research, I think Wikipedia was more useful. Because the use of Wikipedia system was more simple and easy than Encyclopedia Brittannica. As I said it before, Encyclopedia Brittannica was divided in to articles. It was generally liked speaking rather than to present such ideas or concept to viewers.

Can you trust this encyclopedia (the one you used) 100%? Why or why not?

I cannot trust this encyclopedia totally. Since some of the information is freely edited by anyone, each of us could freely entry and uploads what they want to say to Wikipedia. It means that this information and research were unable to distinguish the genuine from the fake. So that we need to bear in mind to take care to choose this kind of information. Avoid using wrong information to cause any misleading and misunderstanding.