Wiki as accurate as britannica!(for scientific topics)

[TheShiz]

the good thing about wiki is that it is editable, if a bunch of people come across info they know is not right, someone will probably correct it. but how many people are willing to go through the hassle of correcting bad information in a book? even then there will always be bad editions of the book, even if it is fixed later. wiki is at least up to date. definately not your only source, but it is a great starting point, a lot of times better than google if you just want to find information about something instead of 5 billion websites trying to sell you crap.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: TheShiz
the good thing about wiki is that it is editable, if a bunch of people come across info they know is not right, someone will probably correct it. but how many people are willing to go through the hassle of correcting bad information in a book? even then there will always be bad editions of the book, even if it is fixed later. wiki is at least up to date.

So you're trying to say that Wiki is more accurate than Encyclopedias and other reference books?

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: mugs
You should never use ANY type of encyclopedia as a source in a reasearch paper, whether it be Wikipedia or Britannica. However if the wiki article cites its sources, you could use those sources. If it doesn't cite its sources it's about as useful as what some homeless guy on the street told you.

A research paper should use primary or secondary sources. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources. An encyclopedia is basically a book full of research papers! I don't know of any educator who'd let anyone above 7th grade use an encyclopedia article in a research paper.

http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/primary.html

Agreed, they aren't a bad place to start but I don't think they should be used in a research paper either.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
It will never be accepted as long as it is editable.

What isn't? How many different versions of your textbook exist?

That's a horrid reason to exclude it. It's accuracy is what's important.

Originally posted by: BD2003

Exactly. And it may be statistically as accurate, but probably widely more variant.

😕 It's as accurate but varies more? This don't make no sense at all.

It might be as accurate on average. But britannica is probably very accurate, but far less verbose. Wiki on the other hand, is much larger, but the quality of the articles is very variant. Just cause one article is perfect, the next can be absolute trash.

If britannica makes a mistake, its an anomaly. If wiki makes a mistake, it just wiki being wiki. Therefore you can trust any given britannica article, but you never know about wiki, so its unacceptable.

 

[DainBramaged]

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
It will never be accepted as long as it is editable.

What isn't? How many different versions of your textbook exist?

That's a horrid reason to exclude it. It's accuracy is what's important.

Oh, really? I would never doubt that many editions of a textbook are out there. The amount I pay for textbooks each semester definatly shows that.

However, these textbooks are written by people with bona-fide credentials. They are authorities on their topics, oftentimes having spent all their lives researching a subject that they are writing a book on.

This simply isn't true with wikipedia. It is possible for it to be edited by anybody, and for that reason right there, it will never be accepted as a competitor to Britannica.

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: mugs
You should never use ANY type of encyclopedia as a source in a reasearch paper, whether it be Wikipedia or Britannica. However if the wiki article cites its sources, you could use those sources. If it doesn't cite its sources it's about as useful as what some homeless guy on the street told you.

A research paper should use primary or secondary sources. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources. An encyclopedia is basically a book full of research papers! I don't know of any educator who'd let anyone above 7th grade use an encyclopedia article in a research paper.

http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/primary.html

Bingo!

/thread

 

[Phoenix86]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
It will never be accepted as long as it is editable.

What isn't? How many different versions of your textbook exist?

That's a horrid reason to exclude it. It's accuracy is what's important.

Oh, really? I would never doubt that many editions of a textbook are out there. The amount I pay for textbooks each semester definatly shows that.

However, these textbooks are written by people with bona-fide credentials. They are authorities on their topics, oftentimes having spent all their lives researching a subject that they are writing a book on.

This simply isn't true with wikipedia. It is possible for it to be edited by anybody, and for that reason right there, it will never be accepted as a competitor to Britannica.

The credentials is a fair reason, I'll buy that to an extent. That doesn't have to do with it's editable nature as much as who can edit it. However that's a double edged blade, more eyes = more mistakes corrected. I think over time wiki will be just as accepted as populat refs.

And yes, accuracy IS what's important, not so much credentials.

If I were to write some creative/inventive paper on a topic, and all the data was correct; lets say the topic is a new method to grow trees from seeds to 5 year trees in 1 year. Now, I'm not a scientist or a doctor. The paper is reviewed and the conclusion is found correct.

Do my credentials matter or is it the accuracy of my results?

Don't some nobel prize winners have pretty bad credentials, but discovered something important?