[Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper

[Charles Ess]

I think Jesper Aagaard Petersen nicely puts his finger on the central point.
To be sure, there are many entries in wikipedia that are just fine - and
sometimes, as in the case of Kuso as described by Nishant Shah, it may be
the only easily accessible and credible reference to offer a reader.  But we
know this - better, one of the goals of our research and scholarship is to
know how to evaluate the quality of claims, arguments, etc. in such
articles, whether electronic or in print - by our having developed a larger
overview of the topic, theme, etc. that allows us to make informed
judgments.  And this sort of larger overview, of course, (almost?)
inevitably involves familiarity with several relevant sources that we find
in print (and/or, e.g., an electronic version of a journal article available
through JSTOR, etc.).
I try to model this framework of scholarly research and knowledge with my
students.  They are welcome to start with an entry in wikipedia - more often
than not, in my experience, the relevant entries are more than adequate as
starting points; some are delightful masterpieces.  But I and my students
will come to figure this out only by going on and developing the larger
framework of understanding via additional articles and resources - many, if
not most, derive from "traditional" print sources.
What I/we object to, I think, is not the use of electronic resources per se
- but the (usually) very narrow and ill-informed framework that results if a
student or scholar can only navigate, as was mentioned, the first three
online sources prompted by a search.  To echo an earlier point re. Kindle
vis-à-vis books - in my mind, the issue is to determine the appropriate uses
of each technology, resource, etc., and learn how to use these, often in
complimentary fashion, for the sake of improving our knowledge and
understanding.
The risk to that project, of course, is that our (usually fully justified)
fascination with new possibilities and new technologies may incline us to
ignore or neglect the older for the sake of the newer.

cheers, everyone, and thanks!
- c.


On 5/7/09 6:01 AM, "Jesper Aagaard Petersen" <jespaa at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 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.