Daily Princetonian columnist endorses Wikipedia

[Dessert Tears]

Give Wikipedia the green light, The Daily Princetonian

Selected threads regarding citing and reliability:
Wikipedia....what happens when geeks and nerds can write thier own encyclopedia
One of the people in my group decided to use Wikipedia as a source
Kid creates program that tells the identity of those editing certain wikipedia articles
Does wikipedia count as one source or do i cite it for everything?

Edit: Clarifying poll added.

 

[BoomerD]

Hmmm...sounds like another lazy college student to me...

 

[olds]

Never

 

[sonambulo]

Wikipedia fuckin blows. Jimmy Wales fuckin blows.

It's great for pop culture info and a cursory scan about a new subject but it's still junk for serious info.

 

[Farang]

Just because it is Princeton doesn't mean it isn't a college newspaper. And by law college newspaper opinion articles are complete shit written by idiots. With that said, there is no reason for Wikipedia to be cited. Every entry has a bibliography portion where you can find the academic sources the author used, and you can cite those in your research paper. Encyclopedia Britannica has been around since 1768 (thanks wiki) and it still isn't considered an academic source, why should Wikipedia be?

 

[ShotgunSteven]

The content in this post is under dispute

The Daily Princetonian is run by Communists whose goal is the complete ruination of our educational system.

Wikipedia told me so.


- vi
Off Topic Dispute Moderator

 

[frostedflakes]

That's silly. Citing any encyclopedia in a serious research paper is a no-no, whether it's Wikipedia, Britannica, or whatever.

 

[Skeeedunt]

I often cite my own work as evidence that I'm right. Where's the problem?

 

[mugs]

Ugh... Princeton should expel that guy for being a moron and embarrassing the university. Really, I think less of Princeton because they accepted that guy. The problem with wikipedia is not that it's a website, it's not that it can be edited by anyone, and it's not that it's an unreliable source. The problem is that it is an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. An encyclopedia essentially is a collection of research papers. I learned in the sixth grade that you should never use an encyclopedia as a source for a research paper. Cite primary and secondary sources. If you can't handle that, you don't belong at a community college let alone Princeton.

 

[videogames101]

ZOMG!, citing a source with fewer errors than most citable resources? The horror!

Of course it should be a valid source.

 

[Acanthus]

I think its fair to say that i use wikipedia extensively for non-serious research projects at college.

I simply go to the cited works in the article and verify them, then use the cited sources as my sources.

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: mugs
Ugh... Princeton should expel that guy for being a moron and embarrassing the university. Really, I think less of Princeton because they accepted that guy.

My thoughts run along these lines. "Don't cite encyclopedias directly" is a simple rule that a good portion of ATOT understands.

Originally posted by: sonambulo
It's great for pop culture info and a cursory scan about a new subject but it's still junk for serious info.

I seem to remember someone (maybe you) posting similar sentiments. What kind of "serious info" is lacking?

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: Flatscan

Originally posted by: mugs
Ugh... Princeton should expel that guy for being a moron and embarrassing the university. Really, I think less of Princeton because they accepted that guy.

My thoughts run along these lines. "Don't cite encyclopedias directly" is a simple rule that a good portion of ATOT understands.

Originally posted by: sonambulo
It's great for pop culture info and a cursory scan about a new subject but it's still junk for serious info.

I seem to remember someone (maybe you) posting similar sentiments. What kind of "serious info" is lacking?

For me, it's the fact that someone can just edit it to reflect their personal beliefs and not necessarily fact.

 

[imported_Imp]

If it weren't that any Joe could walk up and change any tidbit of information, I'd say yes. Every other 'source' out there was written by someone else after being told/retold/re-retold the facts, but we trust those sources outright.

Without every fact being a perfect reproduction of an experiment, piece of paper or live TV event with a perfect timestamp, I guess limiting the number of people the information has changed hands to as little as possible is the best bet.

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
For me, it's the fact that someone can just edit it to reflect their personal beliefs and not necessarily fact.

That's a valid criticism. My opinion is that a reader naive enough to take a Wikipedia article at face value or over a more reliable website should get off the Internet. There's plenty of misinterpretation and outright misinformation outside of Wikipedia.

 

[KLin]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven
The content in this post is under dispute

The Daily Princetonian is run by Communists whose goal is the complete ruination of our educational system.

Wikipedia told me so.


- vi
Off Topic Dispute Moderator

Where's the thread to talk about the disputed content?!?!?

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: Flatscan

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
For me, it's the fact that someone can just edit it to reflect their personal beliefs and not necessarily fact.

That's a valid criticism. My opinion is that a reader naive enough to take a Wikipedia article at face value or over a more reliable website should get off the Internet. There's plenty of misinterpretation and outright misinformation outside of Wikipedia.

Ant a wiki article should not be cited in an academic paper.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
That's silly. Citing any encyclopedia in a serious research paper is a no-no, whether it's Wikipedia, Britannica, or whatever.

huh? why not encyclopedia like Britannica? they're reputable company

 

[JujuFish]

A friend of mine writes for The Daily Princetonian. I'm curious about his thoughts on this article.

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: Flatscan

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
For me, it's the fact that someone can just edit it to reflect their personal beliefs and not necessarily fact.

That's a valid criticism. My opinion is that a reader naive enough to take a Wikipedia article at face value or over a more reliable website should get off the Internet. There's plenty of misinterpretation and outright misinformation outside of Wikipedia.

Ant a wiki article should not be cited in an academic paper.

I may have misinterpreted your post with my reply ? I feel like we may be posting past each other. I agree that Wikipedia should not be cited in an academic paper. It seems that we disagree on which shortcoming is most relevant.

 

[nageov3t]

I put wiki on the same level as an encyclopedia or any other tertiary source -- valid as a jumping off point, but NOT a substitute for real primary and secondary sources.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
I think its fair to say that i use wikipedia extensively for non-serious research projects at college.

I simply go to the cited works in the article and verify them, then use the cited sources as my sources.

This about sums up what most people do, I think.

 

[CycloWizard]

I often use Wiki for basic, very preliminary information when getting in to a field that I don't know anything about. But it's not a rigorous/peer-reviewed source of information, so I wouldn't ever consider citing it in a paper. I could make a Wiki page that said whatever I wanted, then cite it. It could also be different when any reader of my article went to check it.

 

[sonambulo]

Originally posted by: Flatscan
I seem to remember someone (maybe you) posting similar sentiments. What kind of "serious info" is lacking?

No, wasn't me. Just look at the page for Cicero (fresh because I looked at it the other night).

The page has no discussion of his letters, none of his writings, and sums up 60 years of Rome's most important statesman into a single paragraph. It's factual, and a great place to start research, but none of the real meat and potatoes of his career is found there.

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: sonambulo

Originally posted by: Flatscan
I seem to remember someone (maybe you) posting similar sentiments. What kind of "serious info" is lacking?

No, wasn't me. Just look at the page for Cicero (fresh because I looked at it the other night).

The page has no discussion of his letters, none of his writings, and sums up 60 years of Rome's most important statesman into a single paragraph. It's factual, and a great place to start research, but none of the real meat and potatoes of his career is found there.

Which article in particular? Cicero had a number of sub-articles spun-off recently, including Writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero. The Writings article isn't much more than a list and could use expansion. Many of the individual articles look thin, but In Verrem and Pro Milone look like a reasonable stand-alone articles.