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_ News Worth Discussing _ Listen to Wikipedia, not your professors - Indiana Daily Student

Posted by: Newsfeed


<img alt="" height="1" width="1" />http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEqF8TitNik2kJQgwndjCVb8pOG6A&url=http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=85055
Indiana Daily Student
By Nico Perrino | IDS His class was just assigned a research paper and told it needed to use five outside sources. “Online sources are fine so long as they're reputable,” the teacher responds. “Things like Wikipedia don't count. Just use common sense, ...

http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&ncl=dTGUW4-SrwLV-GM

Posted by: thekohser

Comment:

QUOTE
Nico, your assessment of Wikipedia reveals a juvenile depth of research skills. For example, I suggest you read Nicholas Carr's critique of the Nature "study" that was a news gimmick, not a peer-reviewed exercise. Even still, Wikipedia came out measurably worse than Encyclopedia Britannica. I would also suggest you take a look at this example of Wikipedia's so-called self-correcting power: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah4kieOUZBXNTqufICnL5znsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20120110113346AALxOqU

If you're open-minded enough, I would also point you to a presentation I delivered recently to a class of gifted and journalism students at a local high school, which you'll want to view in slide show mode: http://www.wikipediareview.com/File:Use_At_Your_Own_Risk_2003_version.ppt

Another problem with Wikipedia is that while juvenile minds may come to think it is the best source on the Internet for all subjects, this is not at all true. Compare Wikipedia's article about "consumer economy" (which comes up #1 in a web search for the term) with an article on a competing website (which comes up #19 in a web search):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_economy
http://www.wikipediareview.com/Consumer_economy

Which article is more thorough and better-sourced?

I realize you are only a college student. With time, you will hopefully become more educated about the pernicious elements at work in the world around you.

Posted by: thekohser

From the student's essay:

QUOTE
Also, every assertion of fact within an article requires a citation.


How does this stuff get perpetuated?

Posted by: Random832

QUOTE(Newsfeed @ Wed 25th January 2012, 5:27am) *
“Things like Wikipedia don't count. Just use common sense,


Of course, this kind of thing cuts both ways. Or did you think that Wikipedia Review isn't "things like Wikipedia"?

Posted by: carbuncle

QUOTE(Random832 @ Wed 25th January 2012, 2:25pm) *

QUOTE(Newsfeed @ Wed 25th January 2012, 5:27am) *
“Things like Wikipedia don't count. Just use common sense,


Of course, this kind of thing cuts both ways. Or did you think that Wikipedia Review isn't "things like Wikipedia"?

I hate to sound like I'm supporting thekohser's relentless Wikipedia Review hype, but it really isn't like WP except superficially. No student would trust what they found on Wikipedia Review the way they would trust what they found on WP. Wikipedia Review isn't the number one search result for almost any single word term you type into Google.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

There's a reason that paper is known as the "Indiana Daily Stupid".

Posted by: Random832

QUOTE(carbuncle @ Wed 25th January 2012, 3:46pm) *
I hate to sound like I'm supporting thekohser's relentless Wikipedia Review hype, but it really isn't like WP except superficially. No student would trust what they found on Wikipedia Review the way they would trust what they found on WP. Wikipedia Review isn't the number one search result for almost any single word term you type into Google.


My point was rather that even in situations where the substance is different [if the MWB article on, say, Consumer economy, is good enough that they should be able to cite it], the superficial resemblance will mean that teachers will still reject it by association.

Really the worst problem I've heard of with this is the "catch-22" aspect - citing [say] Wikipedia's sources without citing Wikipedia itself is seen as a form of plagiarism (since you didn't find those sources yourself), but citing Wikipedia gets them a bad grade even if they didn't actually rely on it for the information.

Posted by: carbuncle

QUOTE(Random832 @ Wed 25th January 2012, 4:18pm) *

QUOTE(carbuncle @ Wed 25th January 2012, 3:46pm) *
I hate to sound like I'm supporting thekohser's relentless Wikipedia Review hype, but it really isn't like WP except superficially. No student would trust what they found on Wikipedia Review the way they would trust what they found on WP. Wikipedia Review isn't the number one search result for almost any single word term you type into Google.


My point was rather that even in situations where the substance is different [if the MWB article on, say, Consumer economy, is good enough that they should be able to cite it], the superficial resemblance will mean that teachers will still reject it by association.

Really the worst problem I've heard of with this is the "catch-22" aspect - citing [say] Wikipedia's sources without citing Wikipedia itself is seen as a form of plagiarism (since you didn't find those sources yourself), but citing Wikipedia gets them a bad grade even if they didn't actually rely on it for the information.

You think university-level essays ought to include citations from encyclopedias?

Posted by: Cedric

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Wed 25th January 2012, 9:50am) *

There's a reason that paper is known as the "Indiana Daily Stupid".

Damn, beat me to it! I will add that it has been called the "Daily Stupid" since at least the early 70s. So "nice" to see such a grand "journalistic" tradition continue. rolleyes.gif