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

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

[k.a.f.]

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

That's why you cite not WP:Monkey, but http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monkey&oldid=345367034, which is guaranteed never to change again.

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:Hate

[smitty97]

Lots of my fellow students copy sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia verbatim, without citing sources. I hate that.

[citation needed]

Re:The China Problem

[furbyhater]

Movable type: Definitely first invented by the Chinese, see sources.

Automobile: A (western) jesuit designed a steam-powered vessel for the emperor, nobody knows if it has ever been built (clearly stated in the article).

Abacus: What should I say? Seems like the Chinses were first.

Do you have a problem admitting that the Chinese made some inventions before the west?
Let's just give credit where credit is due.
Just because your history class told you otherwise because it ignored inventions made by other civilisations than the "west" doesn't mean that the wiki articles aren't true.
You call it "infiltration of Chinsese history", I call it "accurate and complete information".