Should Wikipedia be used in college research papers?

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: CrazyHelloDeli

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
The art of paper-writing heavily revolves around taking a few sentences worth of thought and turning it into a few pages worth of writing.

Get better at it.

Well, thank you for your incredible insight. That concept had hitherto completly eluded me.

In all honesty, I've often regarded many undergrad and graduate research papers to be about quantity rather than quality. I'd much rather read a paper that gets to the point and says it succinctly.

Don't underestimate the value of good writing.
I wrote a paper for an Astronomy class that got an A, in the comments the professor wrote "You do not have a lot of facts to back up your thesis, but your writing is so well done and your points so easy to understand that I have to give you an A."

BTW: It was a paper on a theory of the origin of galaxies, and there is very little evidence to use as facts besides plots of the locations of galaxies and limited research on "active" galaxies. It?s a great theory though.

 

[ScottyB]

You shouldn't use any encyclopedia, let alone an internet-based one that is editable by anyone with internet access.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: LordSegan


Generally, academics ONLY accept PEER-REVIEWED (aka, people with a phd) material as a resource.

What's the sense of that? The Unabomber's manifesto was written by someone with a Phd.

 

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: LordSegan


Generally, academics ONLY accept PEER-REVIEWED (aka, people with a phd) material as a resource.

What's the sense of that? The Unabomber's manifesto was written by someone with a Phd.

I don't think the Unabomber submited his paper for review.

 

[Fritzo]

I was always told to use two sources in papers, that way if they don't agree you can get a deciding opinion.

 

[CollectiveUnconscious]

No, I would throw your paper out (maybe not to that extreme, but I have done it). For my classes, the information must come from academic journals. No websites, no encyclopedias, no textbooks.

 

[preslove]

Encyclopedias of any sort not acceptable for research papers beyond high school. Go to your school library and ask a librarian to help you with the research. Learn how to use online scholastic databases (you can access them in or through your library). If you go to a decent university you should have access to most scholarly journals.

Edit: there is nothing wrong in reading wikipedia for background information. In fact, it is a good resource for this. But for a research paper you need to keep it to books and journal articles.

 

[PrinceofWands]

You shouldn't be citing wiki or encyclopedia's if you're in college. At least not for a research paper. Maybe for a shorter response paper, but not research. Get into the primary sources and scholarly journals for research papers.

You are correct, however, that it can be a useful jumping off point when beginning your research. It can give ideas and useful biblio links sometimes.

 

[chambersc]

My Judicial Process professor refuses anyone to cite wiki as a valid source. I agree with him.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
You shouldn't be citing wiki or encyclopedia's if you're in college. At least not for a research paper. Maybe for a shorter response paper, but not research. Get into the primary sources and scholarly journals for research papers.

You are correct, however, that it can be a useful jumping off point when beginning your research. It can give ideas and useful biblio links sometimes.

It really depends on the DEPTH of the research paper whether any sort of encyclopedia is a valid research. A 5-page overview of wireless networking - sure, cite all the encyclopedias you want. An in-depth exploration of wireless network security issues and defensive strategies, any information you find, even on a "live" encyclopedia like wikipedia, is going to be utterly irrelevant anyway (for the technologically impaired here, that wiki article reads like a manufacturer's recommendations for security solutions - it is in no way helpful to anyone that knows enough to be READING an in-depth explorarion of wireless network security issues and defensive strategies)

And that link also demonstrates a lot of the other problems with wikipedia.

Firstly, that external link is an ad.
Second, there are no citations.
Third,

The risk of somebody doing illegal stuff over your internet connection is very small - and even if it should happen, according to most laws the owner of the Access Point will not be held liable.

"stuff"? Citation on these "most laws"? Citation on the risk level? Citation on the liability?
Fourth, it is organized very poorly.
Fifth, it's inconsistant in terminology
Sixth, it's RIDICULOUSLY incomplete. I'm not even scheduled to be working today, I just happen to be at the desk doing other things, and I've answered two phone calls specifically relating to wireless security issues that aren't even remotely close to anything mentioned.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
You shouldn't be citing wiki or encyclopedia's if you're in college. At least not for a research paper. Maybe for a shorter response paper, but not research. Get into the primary sources and scholarly journals for research papers.

You are correct, however, that it can be a useful jumping off point when beginning your research. It can give ideas and useful biblio links sometimes.

It really depends on the DEPTH of the research paper whether any sort of encyclopedia is a valid research. A 5-page overview of wireless networking - sure, cite all the encyclopedias you want. An in-depth exploration of wireless network security issues and defensive strategies, any information you find, even on a "live" encyclopedia like wikipedia, is going to be utterly irrelevant anyway (for the technologically impaired here, that wiki article reads like a manufacturer's recommendations for security solutions - it is in no way helpful to anyone that knows enough to be READING an in-depth explorarion of wireless network security issues and defensive strategies)

Depth is a given if the term is 'research paper'. Otherwise it's a misuse of the term.

I suppose it also depends heavily on your professor and the class. If I cited an encyclopedia for anything other than mundane statistics like population I'd probably get a top grade of C- or get the paper handed back. Even for mundane stuff my prof's always prefer you go to a primary source (like government census data) over secondary stuff. It's just really a good habit to get into.

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
You shouldn't be citing wiki or encyclopedia's if you're in college. At least not for a research paper. Maybe for a shorter response paper, but not research. Get into the primary sources and scholarly journals for research papers.

You are correct, however, that it can be a useful jumping off point when beginning your research. It can give ideas and useful biblio links sometimes.

 

[sobriquet]

As other have said, I tell my students to use Wikipedia only as a way to find other sources. If they're writing on an obscure subject or something that has happened rather recently (without widespread coverage in scholarly channels), I tend to be somewhat lenient. If I find that a student plagiarizes Wikipedia (or any other online source, for that matter), though, I will be as hard as possible with grading.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: sobriquet
As other have said, I tell my students to use Wikipedia only as a way to find other sources. If they're writing on an obscure subject or something that has happened rather recently (without widespread coverage in scholarly channels), I tend to be somewhat lenient. If I find that a student plagiarizes Wikipedia (or any other online source, for that matter), though, I will be as hard as possible with grading.

Speaking of plagarizing, I am absolutely SHOCKED at the amount of it going on in college. Not so much that people do it, but how BADLY they do it. How could they have possibly graduated without getting better at it??? We lose at least one student a class for it. It's unbelievable to me.

 

[silverpig]

Plagiarize wikipedia, and then to cover your tracks, edit out the stuff you stole. Muahahahaha!

 

[sobriquet]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands

Originally posted by: sobriquet
As other have said, I tell my students to use Wikipedia only as a way to find other sources. If they're writing on an obscure subject or something that has happened rather recently (without widespread coverage in scholarly channels), I tend to be somewhat lenient. If I find that a student plagiarizes Wikipedia (or any other online source, for that matter), though, I will be as hard as possible with grading.

Speaking of plagarizing, I am absolutely SHOCKED at the amount of it going on in college. Not so much that people do it, but how BADLY they do it. How could they have possibly graduated without getting better at it??? We lose at least one student a class for it. It's unbelievable to me.

I know how you feel. I have at least one student per quarter who copies and pastes DIRECTLY from Wikipedia. A colleague of mine received a paper that was about 70% Wikipedia and 20% lifted verbatim from the lecture notes. Needless to say that was an automatic F.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: CrazyHelloDeli

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
The art of paper-writing heavily revolves around taking a few sentences worth of thought and turning it into a few pages worth of writing.

Get better at it.

Well, thank you for your incredible insight. That concept had hitherto completly eluded me.

In all honesty, I've often regarded many undergrad and graduate research papers to be about quantity rather than quality. I'd much rather read a paper that gets to the point and says it succinctly.

Please. What do you expect us to do when there's a minimum length? To make the cut, you gotta BS.

 

[WildHorse]

No!

Students should go to original source materials,
not to digests.

But the fact is they're going to anyway, as path of least resistance.

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: herkulease
quoting and citing wikipedia NO.

Using the references used to create the wikipedia entry yes.

Fixed

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
The art of paper-writing heavily revolves around taking a few sentences worth of thought and turning it into a few pages worth of writing.

Get better at it.

No sh!t. Tell it brother.

there's no way I'd use wiki for any science course, Humanities maybe and possible social science... if it were relevant.

 

[Goosemaster]

One could cite the opinions of wikipedia editors, if you have their identities, and one could site the articles themselves, but I would expect your teacher to pull you up in front of the class and proceed to tear your ego to pieces...


you can site almost anything, but citing such an unreliable source that many times depends on clicking the attached reference material, then googling everythign again and again to get close to some sort of verification? NO.

 

[Atomicus]

At the end of wikipedia entries, visit the external sources. Most of the time they'll have the same exact info that is posted except from reputable/non-bogus sources. Then just find what you need and cite those versus Wiki.

 

[newmachineoverlord]

In HS and college it is exceedingly rare for a paper to not mandate "primary sources" of which wikipedia is not one. Therefore your question is largely irrelevent. There are some classes where you cannot make any statement of fact no matter how obvious without a source, and for that any encyclopedia will do, wikipedia or otherwise. (ie. Decapitation normally results in death, according to wikipedia.)

 

[BobDaMenkey]

No way. You can find plenty of other sources that will back up whatever good info Wiki might have, and then some. Wiki can be edited by anyone, and is not guaranteed to be the same the next time you look at it.

 

[chickadee]

Ive used it in some honors college classes and teachers have been perfectly fine with it. In fact, a few suggested it as a source. Other teachers said don't go near it. It all depends on what the professor has to say. I usually use it to get my ideas from, then google those ideas to get a real site as my source.