Wikipedia
 

College: Wikipedia Not Source for Papers

Feb 13, 8:21 AM (ET)


MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (AP) - Middlebury College history students are no longer allowed to use Wikipedia in preparing class papers.

The school's history department recently adopted a policy that says it's OK to consult the popular online encyclopedia, but that it can't be cited as an authoritative source by students.

The policy says, in part, "Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation, even though it may lead one to a citable source."

History professor Neil Waters says Wikipedia is an ideal place to start research but an unacceptable way to end it.

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Fair enough.

#1:

God forbid one has to follow a few links in order to flesh out a premise.

#2:

I love these articles that start off with a bang, and then proceed to completely contradict themselves.

#3:

This really indicates a problem with the standard information model, doesn't it? We're stuck on training students how to do something that they don't really need to know how to do anymore, IE training chefs how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together, when we know that ovens exist.

Ooo oooh do we need a Cellar.org entry for Wikipedia?

The stronger student will edit the Wikipedia entry to correct it or fill out sections that need more information.

The perfect student will create a definitive entry about a subject that previously did not exist or was only a leaf node.

Sadly cellar.org does not meet Wikipedia's standards as a notable topic. If we started a page for it, other people would delete it.

How so? What is it that we are teaching students to do, that they no longer need to do?

First, may I just say that Wikipedia rocks! I access it pretty much daily.

Second, I agree in general with the prohibition for citing them for college papers. Encylopedias are meant to be background research--a starting point. College students should be citing primary sources or scholarly secondary sources. Otherwise it's the equivalent of that paper on panda bears you did in fourth grade where you basically copied the World Book entry.

Ha! you think that's bad--try teaching (or learning) legal research the Oldskool way--with books. It's hard, because almost no one does it that way anymore, BUT--it is necessary to learn for a variety of reasons.

Exactly. It's a useful skill to learn.

Er, I'm not sure what you are saying here, DanaC, since you seem to be making contradictory statements, but I'll expand. (puts down Krispy Kreme some evil soul brought to work). Now I'll expound:

1) College students (at least in the liberal disciplines) should be learning a couple of broad categories of learning: critical analysis and how to find information, i.e., research. Both of these skills are combined when doing a research paper and translate well into the workplace. Looking up an encylopedia article (print or online) and copying it does not serve either of these goals fully.

2) Legal research is especially difficult, as anyone who has tried to learn it discovers. It's mostly done online now, because the old, book-based way is EXTREMELY cumbersome. As a paralegal teacher, I have been in the unenviable position of --trying to teach it; and --justifying why.

The main reasons why a prospective law student needs to do it the old way are:
--you might get hired by a firm that only does it on paper
--your bosses likely learned the old way and will SCOFF at your ignorance
--not everything is online, even now, and likely never will be
--it's part of the basics of the profession; it's like wax on/wax off--you have to soak up the basic moves before you can kick ass

Would this be a good time to mention that I have never used Wikipedia? Never even went to the site.

Well, I have a very curious mind.

To the OP: you posted this without a comment, so I'm not sure what you think about this.

Cloud, i wasn't being contradictory. I initially expressed the view that it was fair enough that the university no longer accepted wiki as a citable source.....then in response to Flint's post, I asked in what way teaching students to do non web based research was equivalent to teaching chefs to light a fire with sticks?

You then posted about how learning to research 'the old fashioned way' was useful. I agreed with you. I see no problem with students not being allowed to cite wikipedia as an academic source in an academic paper.

Using it as a start point or revision tool is fine, but any student with serious academic intentions needs to be able to conduct research using traditional methods (including web based sources which have been subject to proper academic peer review, such as electronic journal holdings like jstor).

At no point in this thread have I suggested that students don't need to conduct 'proper' research. As a student of history and aspiring academic I am more than familiar with traditional research methods, and frankly if I or my fellow students were to cite wikepedia as a source we'd be pretty much laughed off campus.

okie dokie, thanks for clarifying that.

As a recent university student, I can say there's no way I'd even consider citing wiki as a source. The reason for that is that the articles on that site don't distinguish whether they're actually published articles or not, therefore, if they have not been published, they are not a reputable source. They have not been peer reviewed and often contain slanted or flat out untrue statements.

I don't think anyone should use wiki as a reference cited on a paper, however, as has been mentioned, it's sometimes a good place to look for information in order to start to formulate an argument.

Awww...well you guys can read this Audiogalaxy page instead. AG 4-EVER!!!1!

:eek: You should go there now!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

If I was still teaching I would not allow it in my class and do not use it on-line to make a point.

Hey that's a great point. I mean, the way you talked about making it...brilliant. What was it by the way?

I think Wikipedia is a wonderful general-purpose informational resource, and there's nothing wrong in students accessing it for background research. Just to say "you can't use it" is biting the nose to spite the face. Students need to understand the steps in research, understand the purpose behind background research, the difference between primary and secondary sources, and what makes sources authoritative.

Sure, use it as a stepping-off point, but they would not be able to use it as a source for their papers.
WTF?

You don't use it online to make a point, or you don't use it when making a point online?:confused:

Well...you said you "do not use it" to "make a point" . . . what was the point? I don't know what the point is, so you haven't made it. You haven't explained what the point is. Furthermore, nobody is keeping track of whether you, one individual man, is using or not using Wiki - so simply not using it doesn't "make" a point. If your not-using-it were to catch the attention of interested parties, they wouldn't have any way to know what your reasons were, so no "point" would be made in that case. The only possible way you could be making a "point" is by posting, here, about not using Wiki. But that, too, fails to "make a point" because you have neglected to tell us what the "point" is. So: what was the point?

For the record, I'm interested in what your point consists of, so please make one.

But I know everything already. :-)

I thought the point of Wikipedia is that all articles are peer reviewed. By everyone. Nearly everyday.

It's prof's discretion where I'm going to class and most allow it to be used once. Nothing wrong with using it to read through the original sources, either, since they're cited.

I hope you are making sense to yourself, I really do. I know you think this is some kind of argument and insult, it is not, it is just sad.

I only did it to make a point.

In the context of academic research, 'everyone' does not constitute peer review.

"The fibs that professor Alexander Halavais slipped in were deviously subtle: that abolitionist Frederick Douglass, lived in Syracuse, N.Y. for four years, and that the Disney film The Rescuers Down Under won an Oscar for film editing. Both are false, but would you have doubted these "factoids"?

Halavais hypothesized that the obscure errors would "languish online for some time," the Chronicle reported. Instead the Wikipedia volunteers eliminated all the fabrications within three hours of being posted."

He's just being a goof. It was kinda funny. No reflection on you though RK. :)

Not allowed to use it on papers? Better yet: let's completely ban it from all US schools and libraries.

because burning books is so old-fashioned
 

Ahhh... good ol' Ted Stevens. Leave it to him to demonstrate, perfectly, a point I'm having difficulty articulating.

I just wish educators were as sceptical of nonsense that sneaks into text books as they are of a self-correcting on-line information source.

Yes... I'd like to see a textbook that updates itself every three hours. Clearly, we should fight to stamp out this new evil. Burn- I mean BAN it!

*thinking outloud*

stop bringing that gwaddamn place up.

He may be an AG'er "4-EVER!!!1!", but you'll notice he is, in fact, still on the Cellar and logs in almost everyday.

Once you've descended into The Cellar, you never go back up the stairs.

The difficulty with wikipedia isn't that it might contain errors or factual inconsistencies, but that there is no peer review to ensure the quality of the research and analysis. We haven't been comparing it to school text books, rather we've been comparing it to independant and original pieces of scholarship.

Again, Wikipedia is under more frequent peer review than any published journal. Just look through the discussion pages on any given topic to see additions, alterations, debate, and discussion. No journal, article, or published textbook could receive equal peer review the way WP does.