Badke (2008) begins his article reminding us that Wikipedia although controversial is still the online encyclopedia of choice by 36% of the United States population according to Pew Internet & American Life Project’s findings. (As quoted by Badke, para. 1)
Even if the public likes it, though, for the most part academic circles do not. Many professors will not allow their students to use Wikipedia. These professors think Wikipedia is trivial, untrustworthy, insulting, and too often completely incorrect. (2008, para. 4) Could this be because the university world is jealous? It is true that true academics are the experts and if a layperson wants the facts, they are the best resource. However, because of the zealous use of electronic resources, students prefer to go online and consult Wikipedia
The common man/woman writes Wikipedia. There is no peer review, there are no editors, and there are no revision dates. In fact, Wikipedia encourages and advises its users to verify the information presented in its content. One positive characteristic Wikipedia has is its currency. An article in another encyclopedia may take months to write, but contributors often write articles on Wikipedia within a month of the occurrence of an event. Another positive feature is its popularity. Millions of users use Wikipedia. It provides dependable material, resolves their questions, and besides, Wikipedia is easy to use.
Badke suggests that professors make Wikipedia into a project. They can review articles and make necessary changes, or they can write articles for publication. Professors can perhaps have students analyze the strengths and weaknesses of given articles, edit them and republish the improved product. There is an old saying, “If...
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...usion, Murley argues that Wikipedia is a great starting point because it provides references to other reputable sources. In order to use it appropriately, however, librarians and other instructors should teach researchers how to evaluate the articles for authority, completeness, bias, and accuracy. (2010, p. 599)
I completely agree that students need to learn to question all resources. They need to comprehend that not everything published online is accurate. However, someone needs to teach them how to question and evaluate what they read. Librarians are ideal for the job.
Works Cited
Badke, William, (2008). What to Do With Wikipedia. Online, 32(2). Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/online/mar08/Badke.shtml
Murley, Diane, (2008). In Defense of Wikipedia. Law Library Journal, 100(3): 593-599. http://www.aallnet.org/main-menu/Publications/llj
Andrea Schlesinger’s, “In Google We Trust” a chapter in her book The Death of Why? The issue is that the internet has changed people and that it may not be a good thing. Google has changed the way that people think greatly, especially in our ability to analyze, understand and know the source of the information we receive from google.
It has never been hard for anyone to find, what they would believe to be, flaws in our educational system. Even the articles “Hirsch’s Desire for a National Curriculum” by Eugene F. Provenzo Jr., “Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers,” by Josh Keller, and “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,” by James W. Loewen are all obviously focused around problems the writers have found with the ways students are being taught. Although every article clearly discusses several concerns for our nations educational system and the way our students are learning, not one of the authors take into serious consideration the opinions, concerns, or feedback from the actual students. Nor do authors acknowledge whether the students are happy or not with their own education and the way they learn.
As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia. While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it.
...ie, 31 (1) 27-49.Fallis, D. (2008). Toward an epistemology of Wikipedia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(10), 1662–1674. doi:10.1002/asi.20870
...second using the search engine, people lose their motivation to read and the attention to think about the answer. (Crovitz 353) In Plato’s Phaedrus, Greek philosopher Socrates claims that people who get information without proper instruction as ignorant since they only conceit of the answer instead of the wisdom to find out and understand the answer. (Carr 341) With such access to information, we do spread information and expand human knowledge in a rapid rate. However, we lose our creativity, intelligence and the spirit of inquiry.
“They do, you click on your internet explorer browser and type Wikipedia into the search engine.” Chris groaned. “Boom! From there you travel from hyperlink to hyperlink gathering all the information you need.” A slight tinge of annoyance had seeped into his tone.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr disputes that due to new digital tools, peoples’ ability to retain and acquire information has been negatively altered. Even though, we have information at our fingertips, we often don’t take the time to soak in all the information. Carr mentions Bruce Friedman, a blogger, who finds it extremely difficult to read a “longish article on the web” and to try to focus on the importance of the text holistically (Carr 316). This is an issue that many can relate even Carr knows that, “ the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle (Carr 314). Additionally, media theorist Mcluhan describes the net as “chipping away [mental] capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 315). In essences, Carr states that we are having less of an attention span and consequently, less patience for longer articles (Carr 314). Therefore, this affects media outlets such as magazines, newspapers, and other articles, because they must conform and shorten their texts to fit the status quo that people safely enjoy (Carr 321). In addition, the net forces people to be efficient, and so, causes people to “weaken [their] capacity for deep reading” (Carr 317). People are becoming more driven on how quick he or she has to do something rather than think why this text is important. As a consequence, Carr believes that we are starting to lose our ability to be critical readers and
Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluatingstudent-generated content for collaborative learning. British Journal for Educational Technology, 39(6), 987-995.
Despite our English teachers’ best efforts each and every one of us at some point in our writing careers have stumbled upon a source of information from the infamous website Wikipedia. In this article the writer discusses both the pros and the cons of the controversial online encyclopedia in an attempt to allow us to come up with our own conclusions about it’s credibility as a source. Wikipedia provides a vast array of articles, over 31 million, on numerous topics. Some of the benefits of Wikipedia include its user friendly site. With its easy to maneuver layout and useful sub-links to help direct you, it’s easy to see why some favor this popular search. This setup allows for you to find new possible connections between subjects while also brainstorm different unique ideas to link with your paper.
Although there has been a lot of controversy over the credibility of information from Wikipedia, society can still benefit from its existence. Wikipedia has the potential to become more reputable through the use of college assignments aimed at creating and editing content on the site. This enhanced reliability would benefit society with a vast collection of highly accurate
Now that we are living in an ever changing world, technology is viewed as the most resourceful tool in keeping up with the pace. Without the use of technology, communication would be limited to using mail for delivery and encyclopedias for research. Although technology has improved the way we communicate and find information for research, the information is not always valid. Unfortunately, for those of us who use the internet for shopping, research, or reading articles of personal interest the information is not treated the same as a your magazine or book. While such literature is reviewed by an editorial staff, internet literature or information can be published by anyone. In order to reap the full benefit of having the use of technology for any purpose, there are five basic criteria’s one must keep in mind as an evaluating tool for deciding whether or not the particular website is a reliable source for information.
The Internet has become more and more of a favorite place for students to go when searching for sources to use in research papers. This is mostly because of the wide and relatively simple access that the Internet provides to all kinds of information. Why get up and travel all the way to the library when it is so much easier to open a browser window and head to Google? While the Internet can be a wonderful source, and is definitely a fairly new, unique, and versatile way of sharing information, not everything one finds on the free area of the Internet can be trusted. Literally anyone with an Internet connection can put up a webpage in a matter of minutes that would be capable of fooling the unwary Internet surfer. It is crucial when looking for valid sources on the free Internet to look carefully for the purpose of the page, the author(s) of the page, and the institution that backs or produces the page, if any.
Barlow (1998) considers that the sources found on the Internet may be uncertain because it is difficult to asses their origin or their validity. According to the author, “most of the works found in a library have been filtered by multiple levels of authority” (Barlow, 1998, p.206) in order to become a reference. In contrast, electronic sources can be published by no matter whom. Of course, some electronic sources are very well written but they might lack of information about the author. For instance, this is clearly seen on the Wikipedia Encyclopedia. Barlow, denounces how easy is for people to write on the internet and states that as a result, a mistake can be produced which will become a “false truth”. In this way, it is difficult for one to trust them. Barlow also accents that electronic sources can vanish very easy if a web page is deleted. Finally, the writer points out the effect which internet has on academic publications which are apparently diminishing because of economic difficulties (idem, p. 206-2010).
Everything revolves around the internet these days. Every business, big or small has a internet website for you to visit. Let’s face it, the internet is not going away, we as a people must learn to use this tool and not think of it as a negative thing. The internet must be used positively to benefit us. We can find anything we want through the internet. The internet can be abused but we must educate our children so they can use it effectively to their advantage. We definitely need to make most schools have the internet in classrooms, there is no doubt about it.
Moran states,” Wikipedia is first in search engines and offers Internet users with millions of articles on a broad range of topics. But its trustworthiness and integrity fall well short of the standards for a school paper (2011, 27)”.