Covino 1
Joseph Covino
Final Paper
Hum 101-010
04/19/19
Free Speech Zones
For years, Wikipedia pages have been a headache for students and teachers due to their disreputable nature. This is because of the submission criteria which allows for anyone to post an article regardless of their experience or education in writing or about the topic of discussion. Although there are discrepancies about the validity of Wikipedia pages, there are pages that can be trustworthy and useful. In determining the trustworthiness of a report, one would look at the style or bias, the sources that are used in writing the report, and lastly whether the purpose of the report stems from opinion or fact. In this paper I will look at a Wikipedia page about free speech zones, specifically on college campuses. I will evaluate the Wikipedia page against the criteria that is aforementioned to determine whether or not the report is good.
Free speech zones, which are commonly referred to as First Amendment zones and protest zones, are places on college campuses where students have the right to exercise free speech. These zones came into existence during the 1960s and the 1970s, during which protests on campuses were a common occurrence. In these zones students can talk about anything that ranges from religion to protesting an idea or part of the school itself. Many universities believe that these zones are essential to allow students to express their opinions or beliefs in a safe manner that does not disrupt classes. More than 50 colleges to this day still uphold free zones and enforce them.
In analyzing the Wikipedia report, style and bias is one of the clearest indications as to whether the report is credible or not. If a report looks like it is written by someone who has had no education or writing experience, then the report loses a lot of credibility. So, when I first looked at the free speech zones Wikipedia report, this is one of the first criteria I evaluated. While reading through the report I felt that this page was written well and could have been written by a professional. Of course, this fact is one that you must take with a grain of salt because of the website you are on. This is the exact discrepancy that I will look to analyze. The page is not only written well but uses numerous facts to help support its claims. When looking at the credibility of the writing on the page one has to look at the bias of the writing as well. A true informative piece limits bias as much as possible to ensure that it is a pure form of information directed towards the reader. This is important as an informative piece of work should not look to sway the reader in favor of the view of the author. In the free speech zone report, it seems unbiased. Clearly a free speech zone for students and others to express themselves seems like a logical idea and something many people could agree with when reading. This report does a good job of not only outlining what the zones are but also include...
