[Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper

[Peter Timusk]

On 7-May-09, at 3:38 AM, Stefano De Paoli wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> recently I got the following comment from a reviewer of a paper of  
> mine:
>
> " *There is considerable use made of wikipedia and in an academic
> paper this is disappointing. *"
>
> I was thinking, what is the general practice in using wikipedia in
> academic paper writing?



see the The University of Google by Tara Brabazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/University-Google-Education-Post-Information/ 
dp/075467097X

Just the first few chapters should do it. The remainder is academic  
demography or opinion on this, funding agenda politics and more  
towards media studies. She also has some very relevant thoughts on  
the art of lecturing.

As a student I can see where I have had cheap hurried and rushed  
lectures by busy underpaid graduate students based on reading her.

She feels we (students) have to be skilled at using a variety of  
sources. She complains about the level of skills of her first year  
classes who use google as a source.

She made a requirement that her students use a certain number of each  
of a variety of sources including films, TV, radio, peer reviewed  
journals, websites etc.

In my most recently completed degree a second BA I learned easy legal  
scholarship. I say easy because it was not an LLB but a BA in legal  
studies a kind if exposure to legal scholarship.

I think my skills at using a library are excellent now because of  
this second BA. I have found work as a research assistant and  
consider my self a damn fine library user and yes a great deal of my  
library use is from home through my libraries web site. But I am  
searching journals and books not web pages. In my early career I  
studied science and statistics and did not have much training in  
research from books and sources found in libraries.

Legal studies are strict as an example, where only legislation and  
written law and in common law cases, are considered sources worthy of  
use as sources. That taught me a lesson too.

I write articles a wikipedia but generally only new ones. I have not  
yet had to quote myself off Wikipedia for something academic. I have  
cited my wikiepdia writing in emails.

I want to say too the web is how I am learning LaTeX. I have to have  
my quality filers on when I google such terms as " greek letters in  
laTeX" and pick only .edu web pages or dot org pages. But that is  
what I do I write my laTeX document and if I do not know a  
typesetting code I google t o find it. I also make web pages on  
technical topics for for others to find. I have used the old bolted  
down 100 page software manuals in the computer labs but search  
efficiencies are much better with some kind of computer search.

I know it is hard to write papers and where I work we publish  
numerous in house articles and analysis. If I write a paper for work  
I have to make sure I find all the other papers done by my workplace  
on the topic and would be expected to have the bulk of my citations  
be to our own papers, But they are all on the web.




Peter Timusk,
B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University
Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa (2006-2010).
just trying to stay linear.
Read by hundreds of lurkers every week.