[LM_NET] Wikipedia vs. peer-reviewed sources

[Elizabeth Fox <keokuk@CASCO.NET>]

I have to laugh about all this...last year, as a senior prank, one of my
tech aides inserted my name repeatedly in an article on George Washington
that was on Wikipedia.  He kept telling me I was older than dirt, so he
wanted everyone to know I'd been at Valley Forge!  Thankfully, his
"vandalism" got edited out in a month, but not before our principal showed
it at a staff meeting the next week.

To me, nothing beats Googlescholar or http://lii.org/ for providing sources
with quality information.  They are the BEST!

For those of you who still think Wikipedia is a good reference, take a look
at this caveat, straight from Wikipedia itself: "Because Wikipedia is an
ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from
a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older
articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles
more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content,
or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and
avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed (see
Researching with Wikipedia for more details). However, unlike a paper
reference source, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or
updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes, or hours,
rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias."

Here's how I handle Wikipedia - I tell students it's a "jump off point" -
don't cite from it, don't quote it...get some general ideas from it AND the
article's BIBLIOGRAPHY, if there is one.   That last bit is where you may
actually ferret out real, peer-reviewed information.


Elizabeth Fox, Technology Instructor
Newport High School, Newport, OR
keokuk@casco.net (pm)
Liz.fox@lincoln.k12.or.us (schooldays only)




 

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