by Ari Davis

THE ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA AS A CYBERGENRE

The definition of the term genre is very diverse, but for our purposes we are going to use the term as it was defined by Orlikowski and Yates. Genre "is a distinctive type of communication action, characterized by a socially recognized communicative purpose [function] and common aspects of form" (Orlikowski and Yates). This means that the genre of Online Encyclopedias and examples of it must follow a common universal convention and form that links all of them together under one category, as defined in the criteria.

In the new genre of online encyclopedias, the online versions have evolved from their print based counterparts, which were mainly used for research on topics ranging from broad to specific. This genre gives the user access to a cornucopia of information, such as links to other more informative web sites, multimedia material and most of the sites are free to use. This now gives the user the convenience and access to material from the comfort of one's own home, especially to those who did not have access to the print based or CD-ROM versions before.

This new field has many advantages over its print based counterpart and has numerous conveniences and innovations. There are a lot of good and bad representative examples of this medium available on the Internet.
There are various types of online encyclopedias and the genre itself is very broad. The genre consists of definition encyclopedias like a dictionary; specific topic encyclopedias (related to a particular topic) and information-based encyclopedias (some of these sites require passwords and logons to access them).

CRITERIA

To be considered a good online resource the site must present:

1. Ability to perform easy searches by topic (which display the most relevant material first)
   
2. E-mail or print articles
   
3. Ability to cite articles (instructions that appear at the end of each entry)
   
4. Extremely easy to use
   
5. Access to up to date and current material
   
6. Offer additional curriculum materials and course links for college users (An advantage, but not required)