As I was working on a class project, I faithfully opened Wikipedia to get a better idea of what I would be talking about. As I skimmed the article there was a link to another site. My curiosity and boredom got the better of me and I clicked on it. It led me to Wikihow.

I was instantly intrigued, especially when I saw the "spotlight article": How To Calculate Your Age by Chocolate. So I browsed the article and was immediately skeptical of anything that made me choose a number less than 10 for the number of times I want chocolate a week. However, when I tried it, the result was exactly how the article said it would be!

At this point, my mind was racing with all of the possibilities this Web site presented. On the left-hand side there was a column with links to featured articles. Wanting to know more, I scanned all of the titles and was surprised to see everything from How to Draw a Dog Face to How to Survive an Encounter with an Ostrich. You can even learn how to pour Coke into a cup.

I decided to find out more. The basic layout of each page is:

1) A summary of the idea for the "how-to"
2) The steps
3) Tips
4) Warnings
5) Related articles
6) Sources and citations

Each page is created just like a Wikipedia article. Someone comes up with the idea, then other people can log in and edit it. I think that this is a very efficient way to make a how-to because other people may come up with some other warnings or tips once they try it themselves.

I, for one, would never have known that "Ostriches on farms are not tame. Treat them with the respect and caution that wild animals merit" before reading up on how I would survive an ostrich encounter. I will remember that next time I see one. However, I think I'll search for an article about how to run away faster first.