Imagine you’re talking with friends or colleagues and someone mentions an obscure thing like “biorefinery.” You think to yourself, “What in the world is that?” So you do what most of us would do: you Google it.
Sure enough, one of the first results you see is a Wikipedia article giving you the facts you need to sound like an expert on biorefinery. But not all Wikipedia articles are created equal. Some look like they were created years ago and haven’t been edited since. Others are several scroll-lengths long and not only answer your original question but give you background on topics you’ve never even heard of.
To help create more balanced information, NC State’s College of Natural Resources’ Dr. Yuan Yao is editing Wikipedia articles with the help of graduate students through Wiki Education, a nonprofit that aims to ensure that “the world’s most read source of information is more representative, accurate, and complete.”
Originally published July 15, 2019.