In another forum I've been engaged in a discussion of Wikipedia. I've been intrigued and a bit dismayed recently by the extent to which people are relying on Wikipedia for information. I mean, if you need to look something up quickly, it's fine. But as your only source or main source of info? What really surprised me is the response I got when I said that if I were still teaching I wouldn't let my students use Wikipedia as a source. "Why not?" is the somewhat incredulous response I got back.
I'm all for using electronic sources and all the internet has to offer, but when it comes to research assignments and papers, shouldn't college students have moved beyond encyclopedias and things like Wikipedia? High school students, too? Do we really want to rely on a source that is anonymous and that ANYONE can edit at any time? And shouldn't we be encouraging students to use primary sources?
So, you academic types, what do you think? Am I hopelessly behind the times? Would you/do you let your students use Wikipedia when doing research?
5 comments:
I would not let students use wikipedia as a major source (nor would I allow use of an encyclopedia -- it's a grade school source, we're beyond that).
I highly advocate use of wikipedia to help one find good search terms and connected concepts. It's great for that and I use it all the time. I only cite it,however, when I'm trying to show what "the people" say about something (I can't go into further detail of why -- but occasionally it is relevant to what I do)
I wouldn't let them use it for research (i.e. as a source to be cited), but I've used it myself for informal presentations (like when I was looking to describe the technical characteristics of some of my lab equipment to my students). I might suggest it as a back-up resource for studying for exams if I'd vetted it first, but no, probably not for a paper. (Until journals start letting me use it, students shouldn't either.)
Well, it depends on the topic, of course (Wikipedia would be a great source for a project on the development of open-source or collaborative reference material, for example), but in general, Wikipedia doesn't count for a lot. I use it frequently myself if I'm trying to find out a particular question (like the day we were listening to Abba in the car and realizing no one present was totally sure where Waterloo actually is), or if I"m trying to get a sense of background information. But as a quoted source to support an argument, it's probably not going to do much.
Ditto! I think Wikipedia is okay as *A* source, but not as *THE* source.
I tell my students that they can use Wikipedia for their initial exposure to a subject, but that it is simply too unstable a text (as in, can be changed at any time) to use as a scholarly source.
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