[PW] wikipedia

[Tina Bebbington]

We advise our students to verify their Wikipedia findings, with one or
more scholarly sources.  This gives us an opportunity to teach about
scholarly vs. non scholarly sources, the importance of using scholarly
sources in your scholarly work, and the importance and source of
Authority. 

I've polled our History professors, and some have banned it outright,
while others haven't - but all will mark a student down if they submit a
paper with few or no scholarly sources. 

What disturbs me is how often I look at a Wikipedia article and
recognize it as a word-for-word copy of an article from a recently
published reference book, with no citation provided.  And when I find a
Wikipedia page with a factual error, I'll often save it to show to
students when they protest my statement that it's not a 'scholarly
enough' source for university papers.  

On the other hand, I will often use it to locate non-scholarly stuff -
Things like - What company produces pizza pops?  What year were the
Smurfs first on the air? 

Tina Bebbington
UVIC 

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf
Of Janet Webb
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 3:09 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW] wikipedia

Hi all, 
We are discussing the merits of Wikipedia in class -- I had bookmarked
an article on Wikipedia itself about the 24 year old who posed as an
academic there.  Some in class are very strongly against it, but I think
it has merits.  I've seen several people here recommend article on it
and someone also I think, edits for them.  I'm interested in what you
think of it, good, bad, somewhere in between, trustworthy?
Thanks,
Janet Webb
Rome-Floyd County Library and
Clarion University of Pennsylvania

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