How Students Use Wikipedia

crazybilly writes "First Monday recently released a study about how college students actually use Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, they found, 'Overall, college students use Wikipedia. But, they do so knowing its limitation. They use Wikipedia just as most of us do — because it is a quick way to get started and it has some, but not deep, credibility.' The study offers some initial data to help settle the often heated controversy over Wikipedia's usefulness as a research tool and how it affects students' research."

Comments

Re:Hate

[ta bu shi da yu]

I'd imagine they hate it worse when the marker uses an automated plagiarism detection program and fails them.

As a source of sources, it is invaluable

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The list of sources at the bottom of most entries is a great starting point for research.

Re:As a source of sources, it is invaluable

[OnlyJedi]

Definitely true. I've used Wikipedia many times to get a heads-up on the topic and learn what sources are good for further reading. I would never cite Wikipedia itself; it's a bit too unreliable and, more importantly, changeable to use directly as a source. But with the amount of citations good articles have I can easily track down whatever source the Wikipedian used, read the relevant chapters, and cite that.

Then again, that's how all encyclopedias are supposed to be used. That's why they're usually considered tertiary sources, as opposed to primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is no different than Britannica or Encarta in that respect. Most of my college classmates have understood this, and the instructors have stressed the importance of a good bibliography.

Re:As a source of sources, it is invaluable

[ircmaxell]

I agree 100%. And as for the "it's not accurate enough for research", I find that it's rarely REALLY wrong. And so long as you go through the sources and don't use it exclusively, it can be a great help. Especially when researching an unfamiliar topic, the Wikipedia page can typically give you a decent 10,000 foot view of the subject, and then you can base your research from there. While I wouldn't use it as a direct reference, you can usually gain enough knowledge from it to at least know what you're looking for when you look at bonafied sources. But then again, it seems like everyone's saying that Wikipedia isn't to be trusted, but that traditional encyclopedias are. From where I'm standing, the only difference between them is the fact that Wikipedia is up front about the "don't trust us". Traditional encyclopedias are typically outdated as soon as they are purchased (for any kind of an active field at least), and typically only show the "opinion" of one or two editors in each subject. Wikipedia at least has the benefit that it's constantly updated and is "peer reviewed" by a significant number of people in the field (at least for the more popular topics). Both have their limitations, but at lest Wikipedia is upfront about theirs...

Well, actually, now that I think about it, you probably could use it in direct situations, depending on what you're researching. If you're doing research into a highly debated subject, Wikipedia usually does a very good job of highlighting the fact from the opinion, and has subsections for each contested part. While this wouldn't be good for a physics research paper, it would likely be very good for a sociology, literary or even a psychology research paper... Subjects that the inherent inaccuracies in a system like Wikipedia would be useful.

Euler Angles

[professionalfurryele]

I know that if I go to wikipedia, type "Euler Angles" in the search box and hit enter, then all the information I need to get me started solving whatever problem I'm working on in rigid body dynamics is right there.

If the page was wrong, I'd recognise it. I know what Euler Angles are and can recognise the z-x-z convention. If it has been weeks or months since I last used them however, I go and I look them up. It's faster than a textbook or trip to the library and more likely to pay off than a google search.

Likewise if I need a quick overview of a subject, I fire up wikipedia. It's the equivalent of asking your mate 'Dave' who did a bit of work in the topic a while back about something. Sure you might not be able to trust everything he says because his memory is a little cloudy but he knows this really good text on the subject that is authoritative and he knows you are a lay person so he mentions the bare basics that aren't always in the more advanced texts.

I'm glad we have a study now which suggests this is how students are using this resource. The reason you don't cite wikipedia or use it as a serious reference text is the same reason you don't cite Britannica. It's an encyclopaedia! A really, really, really good encyclopaedia but none-the-less an encyclopaedia. The reason it's popular isn't because it is being misused, it's because unlike most encyclopaedia it actually contains a decent amount of useful information on a broad range of topics. The only reason we haven't had this 'problem' in the past is that until wikipedia encyclopaedia were, due to technical limitations, pretty crappy.

Re:Wikipedia is an important research tool

[Waffle Iron]

Sure, but the real problem with wikipedia is with editor bias, not factual accuracy.

Every information source created by human beings is subject to the exact same problem, so I don't see how that in itself would make Wikipedea worse than other resources.

The reader is always responsible for estimating the bias of any document's author(s) and interpreting the information in that light.

If you don't agree with the groupthink, then your voice is excluded.

This is true for everything in life. In an old-style paper encyclopedia, it just happened that the groupthink was hidden from public view and confined to a small group of the publisher's employees.