Peace Corp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_corp

500 Contributors overall

Feb 17, 2003 Tobin Richard is the first contributor to the site

The content of the article is based on the history of the Peace Corp and its development by Congress. Throughout my research, I found that Wikipedia focuses mostly on the government’s establishment and details about the way it came to be, not necessarily its current success and struggles or where it will be in the future.  It was much less focused on personal acts of service by Citizens of the U.S.  The site did honor their philosophy and seemed to focus in on this right from the beginning of the Wikipedia article, which is to:

“Promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower (1)

”I have selected this topic on the United States Peace Corp because I am extremely interested in joining the Peace Corp and I am interested to find out more about the acts of service and relief that volunteer can bring to other countries.

The topic appears somewhat biased in that it favors the Peace Corp owners and directors.  Wikipedia talks about  the history, establishment  and success of the workers, but not the actually volunteers who, in my opinion are giving a whole lot more by putting themselves out there in a new and uncomfortable environment unknown to them.  I understand that Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia; therefore, I did expect there to be historical information, but also more current up to date information about today’s Peace Corp and its current development and success of the volunteers and International development.  The sources cited throughout this article, did however seem credible, for most of them were either straight from the Peace Corp’s main website or from Congressmen.  Considering that Wikipedia is a free site that allows strangers to voice their own opinions, I was shocked that there were not more volunteers who wrote on what the Peace Corp is like today or what the future holds. 

Contrast to the Wikipedia site, while doing a ProQuest Advanced key search for Peace Corp, I discovered that there were 37 documents and of these, the majority focused in on safety, security and future expansion of volunteers.  While browsing through the ProQuest articles, I noticed that many were political and talked about support for the Peace Corp from politicians.  Secondly, I noticed that several articles were of personal experiences in the Peace Corp and biographies of people who have come and gone through the service.  Overall, I honestly felt more pleased and satisfied with ProQuest because the information seemed much more trustworthy and informative.  ProQuest is a source used often in Universities and is treated as a credible source by scholars.  I thought that Wikipedia would be more pleasing for the simple fact that it is now this new digital social network in which we can communicate our feelings and believes about a particular subject of interest or expertise.  Also, I am not comfortable with the format of Wikipedia, the quick facts and dates and that focuses less on storytelling or personal insight.  Wikipedia was very factual and jumbled with its many distractions off to the left hand column.  Also, there was very little written on Wikipedia about the Peace Corp, although there were helpful external resources available to search for on the web. 

Peace Corp. Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Feb 13 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps

Peace Corp.  ProQuest.  2008 http://proquest.umi.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/pqdweb?RQT=512&querySyntax=PQ&searchInterface=1&TS=1203128114&moreOptState=CLOSED&clientId=2302&h_pub_title=&h_pub_title1=&h_pub_title2=&h_pub_title3=&h_pub_title4=&h_pub_title5=&h_pub_title6=&h_pub_title7=&h_pmid=&h_pmid1=&h_pmid2=&h_pmid3=&h_pmid4=&h_pmid5=&h_pmid6=&h_pmid7=&SQ=Peace+Corp&FO=AT&OP1=AND&SQ1=&FO1=BITXT&OP2=AND&SQ2=&FO2=CITABS&OP3=AND&SQ3=&FO3=CITABS&OP4=AND&SQ4=&FO4=CITABS&OP5=AND&SQ5=&FO5=CITABS&OP6=AND&SQ6=&FO6=CITABS&DBId=-1&date=ALL&onDate=&beforeDate=&afterDate=&fromDate=&toDate=&Oppubtitle=AND&pubtitle=&Opsubject=AND&subject=&Opcompany=AND&company=&Opname=AND&name=&Opgeo=AND&geo=&Opcc=AND&cc=&Opsic=AND&sic=&OpSF=AND&SF=any&OpLA=AND&LA=any&OpAT=AND&AT=any&revType=review&revPos=all&STYPE=all&sortby=REVERSE_CHRON&PageSize=10