Please Reference Some Reliable Sources
Rants and Raves, School - 4 Comments » - Posted on March, 11 at 1:58 pm
I just got finished proof reading a friend’s paper and while the paper is exceptionally well written I couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow at her sources. Here she is, a senior in college and all of her paper’s sources, sans one (her textbook) were from Wikipedia. *head hits desk*
Now, I’m not saying that Wikipedia is lousy and unreliable, I mean hello, when I talking about things readers might not be familiar with I do tend to link to Wikipedia articles after all. The articles are used to give you an idea of what I’m talking about though, not to provide you with material to write a thesis on.
Wikipedia is a great source to go to in order to get an idea of the topic at hand, but to lay faith on and use for academic research? Not so much. For example, check out this Wiki article that discusses cerebral palsy therapy.
Problems arise, do they not?
Some topics in Wiki are well researched and well documented, but a good majority, including many of her sources, contain controversial information or may even be worded in a manor as to suggest something inaccurate without explicitly stating so.
Just to make sure the Wiki information is correct and reliable, one should check the article’s sources and verify the veracity of the statements themselves. Of course, by doing so, then they don’t really need to pull information from the article do they?
That’s not to say that textbooks are all correct, you’ll always have conflicting views and opinions. But in a place where the information can be edited by any Tom, Dick, and Harry on the internet, well I really have to question the logic of trusting such a source for academic purposes.
What do you think of students and fellow classmates using Wikipedia for their sources of information? Is it okay if done in moderation and other sources are used as well or should it not be allowed at all?
Tagged: citing-sources, information, resources, wiki, wikipediaPosted in Rants and Raves, School | 4 Comments »
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When I was in school we weren’t allowed to use an internet source in papers, unless it was a magazine or something like that. Otherwise, we had to use actual textbook sources. Something that the prof/teacher could get a hold of and find what we used to reference. I think that’s quite smart, so that there is no doubt the sources are credible. So I laugh to hear that your friend is using wikipedia sources. I remember people getting chewed out when they tried to use wikipedia sources.
While I wouldn’t personally use wikipedia as a scholarly resource, I read once somewhere that it’s percentage of inaccuracy is actually lower than traditional encyclopedia.
Julie,
Yeah, we weren’t allowed to Wiki either. At least not in the CJ and Anthropology departments anyway. But apparently her prof didn’t lay down the law on Wiki. Go figure. I even had one prof demand that our sources have a minimum of PR4. O.O
Cole,
That’s interesting, and definately reassuring to know. Although, when I was in school, the majority of my professors banned the use of encyclopedias as a source as well since they’re generally over simplified and riddled with errors. I know that no professor in the Anthropology department, for example, allowed Encyclopedia’s for sources.
I think that’s what amazed me the most, we couldn’t even use an encyclopedia as a source let alone Wiki and here she was doing her entire paper based off of material gathered from Wiki. O.O