[Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper

[Jesper Aagaard Petersen]

Hello all.

While I agree that the use of Wikipedia as a support for an argument or as a
sole source of legitimation is bad scholarship, I think it is very
appropriate as an illustration of an ongoing public debate or as a stepping
stone for a theoretical discussion as a supplement to scholarly material.

It has to do with context and the totality of the article; a discussion of
Wiki etc. can open up a limited scholarly debate and supply evidence of
alternative understandings. In itself, it is not enough. I see it in a lot
of undergraduate term papers: The good ones have researched a bit and
includes assigned readings, additional literature and internet resources,
the bad ones have googled and use the top three as sources.

To begin an article with a dictionary definition is, unless it is justified,
on the level of beginning with "already the ancient Egyptians...". But
Wikipedia or a dictionary is not in itself necessarily common knowledge.
When that is said, you'll usually get a lot more from Wikipedia if you know
the subject in the first place.

All the best,

Jesper Petersen.

----------------------------------------------
Jesper Aagaard Petersen
Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies
NTNU, Dragvoll
NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Tlf. 0047-735-98312
email: jesper.a.petersen at hf.ntnu.no

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christophe Prieur
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:23 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper


Quite agree with Ismael, a reference to Wikipedia sounds to me like a
footnote saying 'hey dude, look at the dictionary', if not just 'rtfm'.
If you think an explanation is needed for some technical term, put it either
in a few words or in a whole section, but if you choose not to, then leave
it to the grown-up reader to look for further information.

My humble opinion of course but i guess you don't want to annoy those
pedantic readers (including reviewers) that share it :)

--	Christophe.



Le 7 mai 09 à 09:50, Ismael Peña-López a écrit :

> 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 
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