Exploring Wikis

I'm sure all of you have been to Wikipedia, which is probably the most popular wiki. Although all of my high school teachers told me to never cite Wikipedia in an academic paper, I've had some college professors who are ok with it. Wikis seem to be gaining more respect in the academic world. They are emerging as a collaborative way for researchers to document and write about their findings. I did some research about the history of the wiki, and here is what I found, on wikipedia of course.

"A wiki is usually a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a collaboration with others. Text is usually written using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor."

"Wikis can serve many different purposes both public and private, including knowledge management, notetaking, community websites and intranets."

Ward Cunningham invented the wiki, and the word "wiki" is Hawaiian for "fast" or "quick."

Academic Uses

• Wikis have been used as a language learning tool. 
• Professors, students, and researchers have used wikis as a publishing and review tool.
• Teachers have used wikis for their classes.
• Wikis are also just used a source of information about a topic like Dr. Burton's wiki on rhetoric.

There are also wiktionaries, which are wiki dictionaries. I'd like to do start off using the wiki I create as a wiktionary probably. I would define terms that are specific to different internet subcultures or just choose one subculture to focus on and create a wiktionary about the terms members of that subculture use to communicate.

Pop Culture Uses
Wikis are also used for less scholarly pursuits. There are wikis that detail specific popular games, movies, TV shows, books, etc. For example there is a wiki for Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Marvel comics movies, The Hunger Games, and more.

I think creating my own wiki will be fun, and since I am applying for the master's program in linguistics at BYU, it will be a good research tool for me. It is nice to have a place where you can organize information from different sources relating to the same topic.