Wikipedia a Valid Source

[Lonyo]

Kids today have it so easy with Wikipedia. Back in my day we had to copy our papers from Encarta, we were like barbarians.

Yeah but nowadays they can get a computer to see whether it's copy-pasted or not, so you can't do that.

 

[mikeford]

The weakness of Wikipedia is that NONE of the material is original, everything has to have "credible" sources usually in published media, but that is no reason not to consider them as usually the best starting point or casual interest source for information.

Serious research should go to the direct sources as much as possible, and frankly no source should be "trusted" as accurate or free from bias.

 

[Anarchist420]

Too many teachers and professors are butthurt over wiki because "anybody can edit it", betraying quickly that they don't understand much of it is cited and verifiable. At the end of the day pretty much all knowledge is something somebody else says, but wiki is one of the best sites on the Internet. It is my automatic go-to on pretty much any new subject. If I need more info I drill down after. In my experience it is exceptionally reliable.

+1.

 

[Regs]

I f'ing hate it when you guys are right. But I check the sources to make sure the facts listed are actually facts.

It's a good starting source of materials and It does offer a treasure trove of sources at the bottom. A good place to reference other sources then.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Do schools allow multiple websites as sources now? When I was in school "the internet" was considered one source. Made it very hard as you had to actually go out to the library to find books for sources instead of just finding a couple websites.

If multiple sites can be used as source then just look at the sources the wiki article uses and use those sources. Though, you'd have to actually go make sure those sources are relevant, don't just add them in without actually going to read those papers.

Oh how I don't miss school, especially the essay part. So tedious.

 

[bignateyk]

Do schools allow multiple websites as sources now? When I was in school "the internet" was considered one source. Made it very hard as you had to actually go out to the library to find books for sources instead of just finding a couple websites.

If multiple sites can be used as source then just look at the sources the wiki article uses and use those sources. Though, you'd have to actually go make sure those sources are relevant, don't just add them in without actually going to read those papers.

Oh how I don't miss school, especially the essay part. So tedious.

My strategy was always to use wikipedia to find the information I wanted. Once I found a wiki page with the info I needed, I wrote down the sources, and then went to the university library website and made sure the journal articles were available in print form, and then just wrote those down as my source.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Op, it was never about wiki not having the facts right although, they have gotten some wrong (about the same rate as traditional textbooks), it's about either not knowing who the authors were or, combining multiple authors in one article. You see when doing research beyond did this thing happen on such a date, it is critical to understand the author's bias. Not only their perspective but the time and society in which they wrote. There is no such thing as the (T)ruth.

The other complaint that academia and myself has with wiki is not their fault at all. It is the perception by WAY TOO MANY "youts " that wiki is the first, last and, best source for everything. It bears repeating for the umpteenth time, the Internet in all it's wondrous diversity only covers about 10% of human knowledge. 90% is not mentioned or referenced in any meaningful way.

 

[CountZero]

As has been said encyclopedias are not valid sources.

Funny how that all works out though. Sometime around '93-94 I had a paper to do and I had slacked off big time. Friend had an internet connection through his dad at NASA so I went over there, printed out sources and used that to write my paper the night before it was due.

Teacher gave me bonus points for the novel sources. Kind of hilarious in retrospect to think of internet pages as novel sources worth bonus points.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

As has been said encyclopedias are not valid sources.

Funny how that all works out though. Sometime around '93-94 I had a paper to do and I had slacked off big time. Friend had an internet connection through his dad at NASA so I went over there, printed out sources and used that to write my paper the night before it was due.

Teacher gave me bonus points for the novel sources. Kind of hilarious in retrospect to think of internet pages as novel sources worth bonus points.

Yes, there are as many poor teachers as there are poor students. However, in both cases, the student pays the price. You can't 'game ' education.

 

[who?]

University libraries are throwing out a lot of physical books to make room for study areas where students can use their laptops.

 

[who?]

Or their putting them in storage.

 

[OverVolt]

Its does matter because there are accepted channels of research in academia. Wikipedia is not Nature. Wikipedia is not a research journal, nor a literary criticism, nor court cases, nor the NIH, etc. Depending on your area of study you will have to learn the proper sources and the proper research avenues.

It DOES matter where you get your information. So for example Kary Mullis invented PCR in 1983. The first article used amplified DNA to test for the sickle cell anemia gene, all he really wanted to do was publish his methodology, since he knew he was on to something big. PCR is probably the most recent groundbreaking invention in science.

If you check wiki's sources on where they cite Kary Mullins with inventing PCR, you get a review journal abstract from 2003, or what looks to be patent information in Japanese

I can tell from the patent information that some of those pictures were in the original PCR article they gave us in school for molecular bio, but you don't have the methodology, what they used PCR to do, explanation of how they ran the gels, etc. etc. etc.

 

[alkemyst]

WIKIPEDIA would be a good source except those that like to troll it are killing it.