Communal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias collections of articles on various subjects. What is specific to these online encyclopedias,

Both the reading and the lecture discuss whether '' online encyclopedias are beneficial or not. The reading claims that online encyclopedias have some negative effects when compare with traditional encyclopedias. Nevertheless, the listener disagrees, it states that the the reading passage has ignored the benefits that digital sources offer to us.

In the first place, the reading says that online encyclopedias are not accurate because anyone can make changes to the existent information. The listener disagrees, she claims that all educational sources have writing errors, but the difference is that errors might be fixed in digital encyclopedias, whereas traditional cannot be edited.

Second, the reading posits that hackers and people with bad intention might change and damages the information of online encyclopedias. Notwithstanding, the listener doesn't support this point, she explains that not all the information online can be changed. There are some parts such as evaluated data from original users that cannot. In addition, digital encyclopedias have people monitoring the changes made by online users, so they identify if the data is accurate.

Third, the reading says that digital encyclopedias ignored important facts and make more emphasis on minor details. On the contrary, the listener states that digital encyclopedias offer a wide variety of topics to users because there is not a limit of space. Thus, users might have access to different data in deed, the same cannot be provided in traditional encyclopedias.