Brian 's finally getting back to blogging, after being dragged to the other side of the planet and back. He knocks one out of the park with this one.
So I too use Wikipedia as a nexus for discussing all manner of digital effects. Sure, you have to acknowledge some shortcomings, but I'll stack the benefits against the liabilities any day. And when, as is almost inevitable, someone asks "what do you think of students citing Wikipedia in an academic essay?" I simply shout back "what do you think of someone citing Britannica? Huh? HUH?" and glare at them a bit. That usually shuts them up, and shutting people up is the hallmark of authoritative instruction.
No kidding. People seem to forget that just because something's online doesn't make it authoritative, trusted, nor appropriate for citation. Just the same as offline publications. You likely wouldn't cite People Magazine in an academic paper (unless, maybe, the paper was on the history of pop culture or something…)
Nor should you cite Wikipedia (or Brittanica, or Readers' Digest) as a primary source.
ps. welcome back, Brian! And with a healthy dose of “blamb’s ways to enrich your vocabulary” – using “synecdoche” casually in a post. I had to look that sucker up.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s ridiculous that people think you shouldn’t be allowed to cite encyclopedias or wikipedia in papers. The information in them is peer-reviewed and edited thoroughly. There are no more mistakes in them than in scholarly journals. Of course, they are not good primary sources but people need to get their heads out of their asses, do the research, and they will learn that wiki and encyclopedias are reliable sources. Fools
Sarah, the reason why encyclopedia (including wikipedia) shouldn’t be cited in papers is because you should only be citing original research. Many of the subtleties in the original research publications and seminal papers will be lost when distilled into an encyclopedia entry. Use the encyclopedia to find the original sources, sure, but then read those original sources and cite them rather than the encyclopedia. It avoids a game of “telegraph”, which is a bit dangerous in academic citations…
That is part of my standard, three-pronged approach to dealing with the repetitive, I don't know much about wikis but I don't like them much crowd:
1) ask them why they would allow students to cite Britannica as a primary source– and since most of them don't, why do they worry so about Wikipedia? I might throw in the similarity in error rates per page…
2) ask them to show me information on the current Iraq occupation or the middle east conflict or the subway bombings in Britannica
3) ask them if they know how easy it is to buy a domain name and make something look authoritative no matter what source they want to hold up as "valid"
I try to keep it playful, but sometimes a glare is useful
As my wife will attest, Synecdoche is one of my favorite uncommon words, mostly because I spend too much time thinking about language. This is the first time I have seen it used in years.
Finally someone says something sensible about wikipedia. Long live the great Wiki!
even if a source is certified as being accurate, you still don’t cite an encyclopedia in an academic paper, whether it’s paper-based or electronic. This was drilled into me 2 decades ago – don’t. cite. encyclopedia. They’re for reference, not for original source publications. It’s a different standard than for news and general interest reading (where I use the wikipedia nearly religiously). Use the encyclopedia as a starting point to learn more about a topic, then follow its references back to the original works. Read (and cite) those.
Recently Jimmy Wade, the founder of Wikipedia, issued a plea to students to stop citing Wikipedia in their research papers.
it’s not that encyclopedia aren’t GOOD enough to cite – it’s just not an accepted academic practice. You cite original sources. Follow citations back to the original work. Read that original work. Agree or disagree with it. Then cite it. Not the book reports packaged as encyclopedia articles…
Google lead me here. I was trying to find a list of academic papers that do cite wikipedia. Some people don't think academic papers should cite any enclopedia, as they aren't considered good enough to cite, I guess.
I don’t think that you should cite wikipedia in academic papers unless the content has been verified to be accurate. This is because your piece of work is a tome of all the academic work ever done. If one piece of the foundation is weak any work that cites your work too is weak… etc.