Thank You/Zinaida Tebaykina

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When I first started using Wikipedia, I wasn’t aware that I could write it.
My professor gave my class an assignment in 2008: “Go out and pick the gene that you think is important. Then create an article about it on Wikipedia.”

I thought I’d create an article on c-Met, because I thought targeting c-Met might help cure cancer.

What I learned in the classroom, I wrote about in small pieces on Wikipedia. I always saved what I wrote, even though it was incomplete. Knowing my work was visible to people everywhere was kind of scary at first, but also really cool. I learned about Wikipedia's 5 pillars of editing.

Since 2008, the article I wrote about c-Met has grown... a lot. Over time, other editors added details and sources, making my article better and more complete.

Today, that little article I started as a school assignment is viewed something like 250 times a day &mdash; more than anything I’ve ever written for medical journals. Wikipedia is written by people because they care about something, not because they get paid. On Wikipedia nobody’s trying to sell you anything. It's good to have a place to go where you can just learn.

When I create something useful that’s read by thousands and thousands of people, it makes me feel good. It’s a way of giving back some of the education and experiences I’m fortunate enough to have gained. Thanks,

Zinaida Tebaykina

''Zinaida Tebaykina is from Yekaterinburg, Russia, a city on the border of Siberia. She left Russia in 2003, when she moved to Vancouver B.C. for college. She now lives in San Francisco, California, and is currently doing cancer research at Genentech. Zinaida edits on the topics of biology and technology.''

Image Attribution: by Victor Grigas, under [//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported], from Wikimedia Commons.