From the Chronicle of Higher Education Feb 15, 2008:
David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the university, writes that students need to become familiar with new and non-static forms of communication. He encourages his students to read Wikipedia’s “history” and “discussion” pages, saying they explain how articles were produced. And he says the online encyclopedia’s entry on global warming does a good job of explaining both the controversy and the science surrounding the issue.
I use Wikipedia regularly and have few complaints. In general, I think its a great resource. While I would not end my research there (or any other single resource), I don’t have a problem starting there for quick facts. And I agree with Parry, that the discussions regarding articles can be very illuminating.
February 15, 2008 at 10:54 am
Agreed, it’s good for quick facts. I take my Wikipedia with a grain of salt but use it a lot to find other, confirming sources. At the bottom of just about every article is an “External Links’ section where I often find primary source material for the topic I’m researching.
February 18, 2008 at 2:04 pm
In fact Wikipedia has their own links describing their strengths and weaknesses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia
February 20, 2008 at 8:31 pm
It is a site generated by the public, so only put as much faith in it as you put in your fellow human beings.
Personally, I put a lot of faith in people, and the process of the community pooling together its knowledge for the greater good is almost inspiring.