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Wikipedia Has Become a Science Reference Source Even Though Scientists Don't Cite it (sciencenews.org)
Bethany Brookshire, writing for Science News: Wikipedia is a gold mine for science fans, science bloggers and scientists alike. But even though scientists use Wikipedia, they don't tend to admit it. The site rarely ends up in a paper's citations as the source of, say, the history of the gut-brain axis or the chemical formula for polyvinyl chloride. But scientists are browsing Wikipedia just like everyone else. A recent analysis found that Wikipedia stays up-to-date on the latest research -- and vocabulary from those Wikipedia articles finds its way into scientific papers. The results don't just reveal the Wiki-habits of the ivory tower. They also show that the free, widely available information source is playing a role in research progress, especially in poorer countries.
Wikipedia is also more accurate than many people give it credit. I know there was a study done several years ago comparing Wikipedia's articles against Encyclopedia Britannica. They had experts in certain fields look at articles picked at random. There were fewer errors per page (and more overall information) in Wikipedia than there was in EB.
Sure, people deface pages all the time; but overall, despite getting a bad reputation as being inaccurate, it's more accurate than traditional encyclopedias.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
When I was in high school, wikipedia was just starting to take prominence and kids were starting to use it for research. This caused a bit of grift because it was much easier to look things up in wikipedia at home than it was to go to libraries and such. So some teachers banned the use of it. But I had a smart teacher that said "wikipedia is a great starting point for research but it is not reference material. Find the actual source of the information you use". Sounds like the actual scientific community is using it in exactly the same way!
What I've seen quite often is that people use Wikipedia twice: first to get a cursory overview about the topic, and then to browse the reference list for further reading. So yes, they often don't cite Wikipedia itself, but they make heavily use of the references.
Instead of "vocabulary from those Wikipedia articles finds its way into scientific papers," it was the vocabulary for the scientific paper that ended up in Wikipedia.
While it is true that Wikipedia isn't reliable as a source the main problem is that a lot of sources that are considered reliable aren't.
Wikipedia is constantly updated. The error in the book you have in your library isn't.
It is not like Wikipedia strives for inaccuracy.
But even though scientists use Wikipedia, they don't tend to admit it.
Oh they'll admit it. They just don't cite it. There is nothing wrong with that. My wife could fairly be described as a scientist and she has several peer reviewed scientific papers and book chapters to her name. She uses Wikipedia (and will freely admit as much) as a way to get her bearings on a topic she isn't deeply familiar with. Then if needed she jumps off to primary data or more authoritative sources when she needs to go deeper. She's under no illusion about the fact that Wikipedia isn't always reliable but it's certainly useful in many circumstances.
Encyclopedias have value even to subject matter experts because nobody is an expert in everything. If you need a quick primer on a topic Wikipedia can be a great place to start. No it won't and shouldn't be cited as a reference but it's a useful tool to avoid repeating the task of getting an overview on a topic.
I give them money every time they ask. And I'm not at all bothered if there's some skim going on at the foundation. They destroyed a friends' 20th century business model, being a recognized expert on a few historical niches, but c'est la vie.
Wikipedia (just like Encyclopedia Britannica back in the dead tree days) is a secondary source (i.e. it contains no original research and every fact in it should come from some other, cited, primary source). Secondary sources are not typically cited in a research paper, not because of concerns about accuracy, but because primary sources are always preferred.
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When I was in college doing my M.Sc we were told that Wikipedia was not to be referenced, and we could be marked down or failed for referencing it. The issue there is that anyone can change Wikipedia, so there's no guarantee that the information there is correct. (WolframAlpha, incidentally, can be referenced).
I did find myself using Wikipedia for the references, though. There are a lot of citations on every page, so if I wanted to look up something for a paper, I'd look up the citation on the wikipedia page and use it.
As a research scientist, there's a tremendous wealth of information on Wikipedia, especially when breaking into a new field/area, much time can be saved when looking for an overview to figure out where the current state of affairs is on a subject from Wikipedia. You of course then need to investigate and verify the information presented but I've yet to come across examples where what I've read was amiss. Note that many in-depth science articles are written by other scientists and often edited by other scientists (a form of peer review, with less liability). Math articles are also extremely well written and both subjects tend to be fairly immune to political or social vandalism.
Wikipedia gets shamed in the academic community but I certainly use it frequently.
It is amazing how much Wikipedia has improved over the years. It has become a valuable starting point. There are various layers of information and it would be interesting to know the scales. If the Wikipedia's content is scaled to 1, the content of books I would estimate to be 1000, the content of articles and knowledge not processed to books yet, 50000 and then knowledge available in non-published material, lecture notes, expert knowledge, maybe 100000. It would be interesting to see, how others see that. My own experience is that even if having literally scanned through all books of a topic (in the dusty stacks of the library), it is still only a small part. Next comes checking the secondary literature, literature cited in books, the ternary literature, literature cited in such citations. Even after checking search engines, databases, citation indices, preprint archives still, it is possible to miss something. There is hidden knowledge, maybe never cited, never looked at, maybe never written down and only known by experts. In all this huge amount of knowledge, it is good to have an entry point.
The issue there is that anyone can change Wikipedia, so there's no guarantee that the information there is correct.
Even if it couldn't be changed there still would be no guarantee that the information is correct. Correctness isn't the issue for citations and citations make no assurance that the data being cited is correct. Things get cited all the time that either aren't or are later determined to be incorrect. The problem is that because it can be changed there is no way to ensure traceability of the specific version of reference. If it is printed in a magazine you can see exactly the text cited. With a web page that can be changed any time with no version tracking it is impossible to know what data was cited.
If Wikipedia had some reliable way to reference a specific version an article being cited then it would be reasonable to cite Wikipedia. You just have to be able to unambiguously identify the specific text being cited. It's not a primary reference but there is nothing inherently wrong with citing non-primary sources as long as you can look up exactly the data being cited later on.
> People, generally, are idiots and wikipedia is a reflection of that
Sure, but lots of people aren't idiots and they're the ones writing the wiki.
The idiots are too busy complaining about the wiki on other sites.
You don't cite second-hand hearsay, highly editorialized summaries or quotations of quotations, you go to the actual research article.
Not that simple. It's ok to cite secondary sources (including opinion pieces or editorials) as long as it is made clear that that is what it is and provided that the secondary source cannot change in the future. Primary sources are preferred for obvious reasons but there are sometimes good/useful reasons to cite secondary sources. The biggest problem with citing something like Wikipedia is that there is no straightforward way to cite the specific revision of an article. Citations simply need to be able to unambiguously and reliably point to the exact data/text being cited. You can cite a paper article because there is no chance of it being changed in the future and there is a reasonable chance of it being accessible in the future. This is true even for opinion pieces. Primary sources are to be strongly preferred but it's foolish to categorically refuse to use secondary sources as long as they can be reliably referenced.
Yep, when I do academic writing I use Wikipedia heavily for big picture explanations and footnote references.
Way back in 7th grade when we started to learn how to do research papers. The early lesson is this.
Use Encyclopedias as a way to give yourself a starter in researching a topic that you know little about. But after you get the Gist of what the topic is about, you can follow its sources, or know enough about the topic to intelligently look for more official sources. After reading the official sources to gain the knowledge you are looking for you would cite them.
Wikipedia had a lot of good info, and for the most part it is truthful and accurate information... But it is still an encyclopedia, where topics in areas are summarized. This is good for the general knowledge questions. For the most part this is good, for general knowledge, arguing on a message board, or even while you are working on something just for a fast reference refresher. But if you are going to be doing an official research on a topic. Wikipedia may be a starting point, but not a good place to cite learned information.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you're quoting Wikipedia directly, you're doing it wrong.
Every non-obvious sentence on Wikipedia requires a reliable source that supports the facts. It's OK to learn about a topic at Wikipedia, but if you're going to spread that knowledge, you must a) read the original reference supporting the facts, and b) credit the reference directly, skipping Wikipedia in the chain of attributions. Reading the original source, you can detect when one of the facts stated in the article is not really supported by the reference.
This is the proper way to disseminate knowledge stored in an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", just in case someone edited the facts in the few seconds before you loaded the article.
Besides, if you find a discrepancy between the source and the article, you *should* correct it at the article. Everybody can edit Wikipedia, after all.
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When I was working on my M.S in Information Assurance, the school made it very clear that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. Now what I used it for was to get a general idea of the subject, then follow the references. Quite often after following the references in Wikipedia, I'd end up with DOI's that I could look up for peer reviewed papers. Saved me quite a bit of time. I'm working on my second Master's now, this time a MBA and it isn't quite the hardline in the school of business, even though it is the same university.
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> People, generally, are idiots and wikipedia is a reflection of that
Sure, but lots of people aren't idiots and they're the ones writing the wiki.
The idiots are too busy complaining about the wiki on other sites.
This is true. In addition, most of the people who complain about wikipedia don't even know of the existence of the history and talk pages. They don't even understand the very thing they are complaining about. They also probably don't know that you can cite a specific page version so it never changes over time.
The fact that scientists don't cite Wikipedia isn't some kind of refusal to admit that they use it. Of course you wouldn't cite Wikipedia, because it's not a primary source. It's an encyclopedia. If you find something useful or interesting on Wikipedia you trace it back to where it's actually from and cite that.
Is that really odd? I'd think that would be the best, correct and also most mainstream approach.
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Actually, the constant updating is a major reason why scientists don't want to use Wikipedia as a primary reference source. It's unstable. A Wikipedia article that you cite can be altered, migrated, or deleted. Refereed journal articles are therefore a much more reliable choice for citations.
I would like to further this line of thought and support.
I'm a scientist and I use Wikipedia regularly to refresh myself on topics I've forgotten, or introduce myself to new topics. If I'm looking at a refresh - I'll likely notice if something is incorrect. I'm using the Wiki to trigger the memories of me sitting in class, listening to the lecture. I sometimes need a prompt to access the graphs and equations already stored in my head.
And if introducing myself to a new topic, Wikipedia serves well as a broad review and the citations allow for ease of depth.
Actually, Wikipedia considers itself to be a tertiary source, but the basic point of drilling back to the best available starting point is exactly correct.
Wikipedia has explicit instructions on this topic.
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I didn't know this until just now, but as Bryansix mentions above, you can cite specific versions of a page's history to avoid this problem.
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Except you can cite a specific wiki state which would allow someone checking sources to not only verify it but also see if the body of knowledge has changed since it was written.
Of course you don't cite Wikipedia. Just like you would never cite an Encyclopedia. They are not primary sources. WTF kind of scientists do you think we are? Scientologists?
They are not hesitant to say that other teachers have told them not to use Wikipedia, "because anyone can change it."
Any good Wikipedia article has references. Those are what you use, not Wikipedia itself. Wikipedia is writing by third parties about things, not the direct information. "Anyone can change it" is two-sided. That means it can change after you cite it, but it also means that ANYONE could be the person who wrote the material, and they might not a clue.
I talk to them about the accuracy and that errors are rapidly corrected;
You know when an error is corrected after you cite the wrong information ... how? You look at it today and you know the information is right because ... it can be rapidly corrected tomorrow?
I then talk to them about suing Wikipedia
Freudian slip?
as a really good table of contents that will summarize, and take them to, the sources.
That is the true, scholarly use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is great for general learning about stuff; it is NOT the right source when trying to do something in depth. I.e., you look up things you see on /. on Wikipedia. You write your chemistry paper using sources referenced by authors in Wikipedia.
The history page and the permanent link page are different. The history page shows you all the revisions, which user or IP address did the revision and what it was before. The point is that it is simple to fix a page that was edited erroneously by just looking at the history page.