The Collective IQ of Wikis

  Today, we are going to talk about the crowdsourced informational encyclopedic website called Wikipedia. The website has sparked some controversy in academia because of its crowdsourced nature. Crowdsourcing, as defined by Merriam-Webster's website, is "the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers." The source of Wikipedia's information is the whole of the internet. Anyone can sign up for an account and add/change content and the very nature of this source is where the controversy comes from.

Young Adult Literature Recommendations: Part 1

Hi, my name is Matt and this is a recommended reading list for Young Adult Literature class. The books in this list are ones that I enjoyed during my middle school to high school years. I thoroughly enjoyed each one and I whole heartily recommend them. We'll start with the author that got me started


Michael Crichton
Crichton was a medical doctor in his professional life and he wrote many non-fiction works/stories on the subject. His fiction novels usually follow a team of scientists as they group together to solve a dire problem.

Andromeda Strain- Crichton's first novel. A an object of unknown origin crashes to Earth and unleashes an unheard of sickness on the population of a small town. A team of scientists is gathered to find out what is happening and why.

Jurassic Park- Dinosaurs. Seriously, what more do you want. The novel is quite interesting and much more engaging than the movie. A wealthy entrepreneur invites a teams of scientists to examine and give an endorsement for his dinosaur amusement park.

Lost World- Also dinosaurs. Also much better than the movie. One of the characters from the first novel goes to the island where the dinosaur testing for the amusement park was performed.


Sphere- A novel about the mind, imagination, and the mystery at the bottom of the ocean. A team of scientists have to travel to travel to the bottom of the ocean to examine a mysterious discovery. I have read this book so many times that I have had to buy three copies. One of my very favorite novels of all times.

State of Fear- Not exactly YA Lit and I only read it a few years ago but the novel is amazing. It is a fiction piece with the controversy of global warming as a backdrop.

Arguing With Form

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin scelerisque pulvinar metus facilisis lobortis. Integer interdum varius condimentum. Fusce feugiat diam eget sem mattis hendrerit. Aenean hendrerit, libero eget scelerisque ultricies, nibh quam tempor odio, at aliquam nisl leo et diam. In condimentum rhoncus erat, ut accumsan tellus vestibulum in. In dui lacus, vehicula id consequat ac, placerat at diam. Aenean mollis imperdiet risus, ut consectetur eros pretium non. Nulla facilisi. Aliquam ultrices ornare luctus. Aliquam vitae sapien sed nulla varius convallis. Ut ipsum est, pharetra ut pretium a, pretium a turpis. Sed non euismod quam. Maecenas ut dui lectus. Curabitur sit amet mauris augue, in tempor enim. Suspendisse sollicitudin suscipit dui vitae sodales. 

Donec sollicitudin nunc nec erat varius auctor dapibus lectus tempor. Nunc ut adipiscing metus. Pellentesque dictum, mi id tincidunt lacinia, tellus purus commodo orci, nec ultrices sapien massa et mauris. Pellentesque convallis ipsum eget lorem tincidunt scelerisque. Vestibulum at massa vitae eros accumsan lobortis ornare non dui. Fusce ultricies neque eu turpis tincidunt at venenatis lacus imperdiet. Ut sagittis leo vel massa egestas nec aliquet risus imperdiet. In aliquam, magna quis varius facilisis, arcu eros auctor felis, in ullamcorper lacus elit eget nunc. Aliquam erat volutpat. Etiam quis ligula quis mi euismod ultricies. Nam at feugiat ante.