[Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper

[Ismael Peña-López]

Dear Stefano,

Had I been the reviewer, I would have made the same observation.

It's not that I don't like Wikipedia: it's that I don't find it appropriate
to cite _any_ dictionary and/or encyclopaedia at all in any kind of essay,
including K-12.

And it's not that I take for granted that my potential audience might be
aware of all the concepts, but I do take for granted that they are aware of
the existence of dictionaries or handbooks (I neither include references to
e.g. "Handbook of SPSS usage") they will use in case they don't understand a
word or (say) "basic" concept.

In my opinion, it is opposite (as you already point at) to citing specific
authors, or even specific methodologies developed by specific authors
(following the former example I _would_ cite a statistical methodology
developed and explained in a technical paper - but not on a generic
handbook).

Put short, I personally find it annoying to find papers that begin as e.g.
"Engagment, as it is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, deals
with...". I'd rather have the main authors that have developed the term and
have it defined by their own quotes.

Of course, strictly personal opinion :)

All the best,

Ismael Peña-López
ICTlogy.net

Public Policies for Development and ICT4D
School of Law and Political Science
Open University of Catalonia