2008 Woodie Awards
Wiki will save your life (citation needed)
Ben Badio
Issue date: 5/12/08 Section: Opinions
Welcome to the first week of the summer session. If you're reading this, there is a good chance you might be enrolled in a Summer A course. Be prepared for six weeks of two-hour classes, exhausting study sessions and lengthy research projects. Are you worried? Are you weary over the idea that a four-month-long course is going to be crushed and crammed into a measly six week period? Well you should be. Your basketball of a course is about to somehow fit into a session equivalent to the size of a hole on a golf course.
You're going to need tools to get you through this treacherous time. You're going to need Wikipedia.
Don't listen to those who speak negatively about Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the world's largest and most up-to-date encyclopedia. Whether you are researching the French Revolution or advanced Quantum Mechanics, chances are you can find a plethora of useful information on this famed web-research tool. Wikipedia is an all-you-can-eat buffet of knowledge, with food that's always fresh and new entrees every day.
Since its humble beginnings, the Wiki community has been dedicated to providing a realm of well-sourced information to anyone with access to a computer, free of charge; and since its introduction to the world, it has been viewed as an abomination to post-secondary education. Professors speak of Wikipedia as if it is a cancer, a tumor that must be extracted. Countless syllabi have stated in bolded, underlined and italicized capital text, WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SOURCE. Every time I see those words, I feel a little hurt inside.
As a published columnist with the ability to speak to a large mass of people, I feel it is my duty to help professors come to this realization: Wikipedia is an amazingly useful tool. Wikipedia is the future of research. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
When used correctly, Wikipedia is a one-stop shop for information on any topic and anything relating to it. It's the world's largest library, right in your own home. It's the Smithsonian on your computer screen. At this point I can see no valid reason why Wikipedia should not be accepted by the education world as a valuable tool. One of the biggest arguments is that since Wiki pages are user-edited, information found on the site has the potential to be sprinkled with mis-information and occasional vandalism. One look at the structure of Wikipedia makes this argument absolutely invalid. Editing a page requires a person to have a Wikipedia account with a login and password. If the person editing doesn't have a login, his or her IP Address is publicly documented. Under this system, purposeful misinformation and vandalism can be reported, and the person committing the heinous act will be stripped of his privileges. All information written on Wikipedia is required to be verifiable. If it isn't, Wikipedia will add a tag after the text that states "Citation Needed." In other words, Wikipedia actually tells you what you shouldn't use in your research. Of course it'd be stupid to cite a Wikipedia page itself in a bibliography or Works Cited page; that is not what Wikipedia is intended for. However, there is nothing wrong with using the website to gain knowledge on a subject, and I don't see a problem with using Wikipedia's sources to aid in your own research.
Maybe the post-secondary war over Wikipedia is just a cover-up. Maybe the powers that be are trying to quell the popularity of Wikipedia before it grows too powerful and becomes education itself.
Imagine a world where there are no libraries, museums, textbooks, study guides or manuals - only Wikipedia. I suppose this is something worth fearing, but I'd be OK with it.
You're going to need tools to get you through this treacherous time. You're going to need Wikipedia.
Don't listen to those who speak negatively about Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the world's largest and most up-to-date encyclopedia. Whether you are researching the French Revolution or advanced Quantum Mechanics, chances are you can find a plethora of useful information on this famed web-research tool. Wikipedia is an all-you-can-eat buffet of knowledge, with food that's always fresh and new entrees every day.
Since its humble beginnings, the Wiki community has been dedicated to providing a realm of well-sourced information to anyone with access to a computer, free of charge; and since its introduction to the world, it has been viewed as an abomination to post-secondary education. Professors speak of Wikipedia as if it is a cancer, a tumor that must be extracted. Countless syllabi have stated in bolded, underlined and italicized capital text, WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SOURCE. Every time I see those words, I feel a little hurt inside.
As a published columnist with the ability to speak to a large mass of people, I feel it is my duty to help professors come to this realization: Wikipedia is an amazingly useful tool. Wikipedia is the future of research. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
When used correctly, Wikipedia is a one-stop shop for information on any topic and anything relating to it. It's the world's largest library, right in your own home. It's the Smithsonian on your computer screen. At this point I can see no valid reason why Wikipedia should not be accepted by the education world as a valuable tool. One of the biggest arguments is that since Wiki pages are user-edited, information found on the site has the potential to be sprinkled with mis-information and occasional vandalism. One look at the structure of Wikipedia makes this argument absolutely invalid. Editing a page requires a person to have a Wikipedia account with a login and password. If the person editing doesn't have a login, his or her IP Address is publicly documented. Under this system, purposeful misinformation and vandalism can be reported, and the person committing the heinous act will be stripped of his privileges. All information written on Wikipedia is required to be verifiable. If it isn't, Wikipedia will add a tag after the text that states "Citation Needed." In other words, Wikipedia actually tells you what you shouldn't use in your research. Of course it'd be stupid to cite a Wikipedia page itself in a bibliography or Works Cited page; that is not what Wikipedia is intended for. However, there is nothing wrong with using the website to gain knowledge on a subject, and I don't see a problem with using Wikipedia's sources to aid in your own research.
Maybe the post-secondary war over Wikipedia is just a cover-up. Maybe the powers that be are trying to quell the popularity of Wikipedia before it grows too powerful and becomes education itself.
Imagine a world where there are no libraries, museums, textbooks, study guides or manuals - only Wikipedia. I suppose this is something worth fearing, but I'd be OK with it.