“Go for quality information, not just convenience”
I remember the first time a teacher told me NOT to cite wikipedia in my research paper. I wasn’t quite sure why I couldn’t, but I did as she said. When I came to college it was so tempting, because of the simplicity, to use it as a source. It was the first link that popped up when I googled the subject. I soon found out about how unreliable a wiki can actually be. Although a lot of value can be found on sites such as Wikipedia, many educators find a problem in using the source.
I read an article about the problems educators are having with students using Wikipdedia as a source. The article can be found on the following link: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki.
Educators and even Wikipedia, themselves, say that Wikipedia is an ideal place to start research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. They do recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. They advise that at the university level students should not even be citing encyclopedias. Professors are trying to take a stand against the use of wikis among students, due to the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries. Some have discouraged and even tried to bar students from using it.
This article had a huge response. Many people left comments agreeing and disagreeing with barring students from using Wikipedia. Some stated that college students should absolutely not use is as a citation. Others argued that Wikipedia is not the only unreliable sources online. A few disagreed with the article, commenting that they, as professors, edit pages and continually contribute to the articles.
I guess that there will never be an agreement to whether or not Wikipedia, or any wiki that is, can be used as a citation in a research paper. Since I have been blogging about Wikis, I have noticed and stumbled upon errors in Wikipedia. I have also found valuable and accurate information on the “free encylopedia.” As of now, I will follow the advice of using Wikipedia as a starting point for research papers.
