PSA

[sabotabby]

Wikipedia is still not a proper source.

Comments

[constintina.livejournal.com]

Why tell me? They have a user interface for that type of thing at Wikipedia.

[sabotabby]

El oh el.

[maeve66.livejournal.com]

I have a deep fondness for Wikipedia as a source, though I'd want OTHER sources in addition to it. But as a place for students to begin? My middle school students in general have absolutely no background on most subjects, and are therefore easy prey for much, much stupider sites that have no oversight whatsoever.

[sabotabby]

With my kids, I have to teach them that Google, and in one case, Google Images, is not a source. So Wikipedia is good by comparison. But for adults, not so much.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

In my opinion I think that Wikipedia *is* a place to start. Because, Wikipedia often has citations to real things that other folks found so you don't have to. You look at it to get to the real things you need through its citations.

But, Wikipedia should never ever itself be cited.

And obviously books and journals are the most reliable.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

It's a proper source of amusement for me when I'm bored. But aside from that, yeah.

[sabotabby]

It's a starting point. But that's all.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

If by "point" you mean something spanning several hours of otherwise idle time at work, then sure.

[threeliesforone.livejournal.com]

I always say that... while I'm looking up something on Wikipedia in order to prove someone wrong about something.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I did that today.

[princessrugger.livejournal.com]

orly? well now i completely have to rethink my entire position on the israeli/palestinian conflict.

[sabotabby]

The awesome thing is that your position can now change daily, depending on who is online.

[princessrugger.livejournal.com]

well now i understand that it is just a simple matter of jews vs. muslims. if it weren't for irrelevant wikipedia articles about decades-old teaching exercises, i would still think the issue had, like, nuance or something!

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

+1

[becauseshewas.livejournal.com]

Amen, sista.

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

I think it depends upon what you are researching.

totally shallow OT usericon comment

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

OMG, Brazil icon!

Re: totally shallow OT usericon comment

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

Uuhhh... yep!

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I occasionally use it as a source for leads (which often dead end).

But I'm actually commenting to show you this, if you haven't already seen it.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Economist Tyler Cowen writes, "If I had to guess whether Wikipedia or the median refereed journal article on economics was more likely to be true, after a not so long think I would opt for Wikipedia." He comments that many traditional sources of non-fiction suffer from systemic biases. Novel results are over-reported in journal articles, and relevant information is omitted from news reports.

*


* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

sry. lol.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

There is also what I call the "Level 2" Wikipedia reference: The student copies information from Wikipedia and cites the sources cited in the Wikipedia article... without ever reading the sources.

At Level 3 they actually read the Wikipedia sources but don't necessarily use any critical skills to assess if maybe they should be looking for something more authoritative.

[enile.livejournal.com]

A bloke I know based his entire thesis on "level 2" use of Wikipedia. Not out of stupid, but because he wanted to finish the damned thing and get a real job. He's a journalist.

[jordansc.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Wikipedia is never a valid source, regardless of what you're looking at. When I tell my students about Wikipedia, some of them are surprised to discover that anyone can go on it and change things. And then I show them some vandalism and discussion tab wrangling to demonstrate the unaccountable inaccuracy and bias inherent in Wikipedia.

[ironed_orchid]

...and it never will be.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

lies!

[marsianer.livejournal.com]

Neither are fantasy novels.

[corvus.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/free_palestine/691796.html

Amusing/Frustrating