Teen pregnancy and the wiki

When researching a controversial issue like teenage pregnancy, our sources for information must be carefully chosen and highly scrutinized. Fact-checking is a must, and one must pay close attention to the "spin" being put on the topic. One writer may cite the same statistics in a negative fashion, while another may use those to portray it more positively. What biases does the writer have on the topic? What are their values, and how are they reflected in their depiction of the issue? While many dissect the rhetoric of television and newspaper articles concerning teen pregnancy, I thought it would be interesting to look at its depiction in a different place, and perhaps one the average college student turns to more often: the online encyclopedia.

As a Wikipedia contributor myself, Wikipedia is often the first place I visit when researching a specific topic. Though some articles are admittedly much less complete than others, it is almost always an excellent first place to look. The article for teenage pregnancy is no exception. If you haven't already, take some time to skim through it now. To me, it appears well-cited and seems to cover nearly all facets of the issue. Even so, there is always room for improvement. One sentence is tagged as missing a citation, and the article could do with some reorganization.

Even though it seems well-written, it is important to remember that in a communally-edited encyclopedia the values of one editor may be radically different from another, and the tone of the piece may reflect this. Take this recent anonymous edit as an example:

Men are selfish pigs and they dont think about what they are doing and when they do it they dont want the resposibilities of the kid when its to late. i think if a man does the deed not to put a condom on then he should be forced to take care of the kid he wants to or not. i mean the woman is suppose to make sure that he puts it on but if she says no then its his job to say hey i putting on a condom cause i dont want no kid right now

Note how incredibly out-of-place it is in an otherwise encyclopedic article. Someone reading it would notice the stylistic shift, and may take it as a reason to discredit everything that they've read so far. Is it an act of vandalism? Should we assume the contributor had good intentions when writing it? Other odd edits are also common, as seen here:

Sex is very very very very very very very very bad for you thank you.

Both of these strange edits were deleted within moments of their being posted. Despite these occasional defacements, the article appears much in keeping with Wikipedia's striving for a neutral point-of-view, or NPOV. Do you think it portrays teen pregnancy accurately?

Though it and Wikipedia look roughly the same, one of the goals of the online encyclopedia Conservapedia is to write from a "conservative, family-friendly" perspective. It seeks to counteract the "liberal bias" of Wikipedia, and present articles from an American Christian point-of-view (1). Popular articles on Conservapedia include those attempting to disprove evolution and the theory of relativity, condemn homosexuality biblically, and set the age of the earth at around 6,000 years old (2). As of this writing, their featured article is on the "Muslim agenda of the Obama administration" (3). Given their point-of-view, it is interesting to look at their short article on teenage pregnancy:

[Teen pregnancy] is a major social problem as teen pregnancies most often either result in abortion or in the raising of children in unstable single-parent families. The increasing rate of teen pregnancies is a consequence of increasing atheistic and secular pressures in modern society. These include the influence of Hollywood values and other manifestations of materialistic culture which erode and undermine moral standards, the hostility of school boards to the exercise of religious faith, and the bias of public school sex education against abstinence education programs, which are the only sure safeguard against teen pregnancy.

I have added the bolded line for emphasis. The editors of the Conservapedia article are clearly more politically motivated, and see teen pregnancy as an undermining of their core Christian values. Rather than expound more on the "what" of teen pregnancy, they're quick to point fingers at "why" it has occurred. The perceived hostility against abstinence-only education is touched upon, as well as an apparent allusion to Christian persecution in schools. In this article, the issue of teen pregnancy is irrevocably tied up with morality. To me, it seems to have less to do with teen pregnancy as it does with what the editors perceive as the the current political climate in America. How does this contrast with Wikipedia's approach? Is it in keeping with the site's billing itself as the "trustworthy encyclopedia?" Which do you think has the most biases, or is the most accurate?

In any case, we have to realize that no single source, whether it's Wikipedia or Conservapedia, MTV or Dubious Conceptions, can provide everything there is to know about teen pregnancy. Each one paints a certain type of picture, and it is left up to us to connect the dots. So, sorry for the long post. I'm curious to know what you all think.

-- Greg W.