Wikipedia
Last night I was at a sponsored lecture given by a prominent Renaissance scholar from Oxbridge. The paper this Professor delivered was on Classical motifs in Renaissance art, and, for the most part, quite lively and interesting. At one point, towards the end of the lecture, Professor X employed the following definition of "subliminal advertising" as given in Wikipedia:
A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another object, designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. These messages are indiscernible by the conscious mind, but allegedly affect the subconscious or deeper mind. Subliminal techniques have occasionally been used in advertising and propaganda; the purpose, effectiveness and frequency of such techniques is debated.
A colleague next to me and I both looked at each other at this point, since it was not clear whether Professor X's reference to Wikipedia was tongue-in-cheek or not. There was nothing explicit to suggest that it was meant as a joke. Suffice to say I found it difficult to give the rest of the paper the attention it probably deserved after that point.
I held my tongue during question time, opting to approach the speaker after the session. "Why did you use Wikipedia?" Instead of addressing my question directly, their response was to justify giving a definition for "subliminal advertising," so I queried again: "Were you being serious, or was it meant to be tongue-in-cheek?" Finally, I was told it was a joke, but I couldn't help but feel troubled by the fact that its tongue-in-cheek nature was not made explicit during the lecture (not to mention the apparent difficulty in giving me a direct answer in the first place). I don't know what to think.
Given last month's 'Wikipedia Scandal' here in Australia (see cartoon on right and The Age article it is taken from), the general academic consensus on the merits of Wikipedia, and the comments of its founder ("For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia" - cited in the Chronicle of Higher Education), I don't feel the least bit upset in failing students who insist on relying on Wikipedia in their essays and research assignments. My colleague sitting next to me at the lecture informed me afterwards that this practice had put me in a position of some notoriety with students – I'm the guy that fails folks for using Wikipedia. Am I wrong?
posted by bdh @ Thursday, September 20, 2007
6 comments
6 Comments:
-I don't feel the least bit upset in failing students who insist on relying on Wikipedia in their essays and research assignments.-
First, I can't speak to academia although I have (pre-wiki) completed a uni degree. So these thoughts are from the unwashed.
That blanket statement of yours doesn't quite communicate the necessary info. What were the students informed at the outset with respect to wikipedia? Exactly how were wikipedia citations deployed in failed papers, so to speak? Or were they caught out from your searching?
It seems to me that wikipedia is a reasonable general resource and differs to the olden days equivalent of encyclopaedia in that it often provides useful citations/links itself. I use it all the time as a jumping off point - I may not be crafting a thesis submission but tertiary education does not have a monopoly on critical thinking abilities. In fact I daresay there is a good argument available to say that using wikipedia regularly confers skeptical reading skills.
It's one thing to rewrite a wikipedia entry to submit as an essay on the history of England and another thing altogether to acknowledge that wikipedia 'helped' in the construction of the work.
Maybe, instead of there being a blanket ban on wikipedia, some guiding instructions about how limited assistance from wikipedia can be helpful ought to be communicated and discussed early on. I don't of course mean for use as the primary source material and especially not for integral or crucial points in the submitted piece - but they will just use it and lie if it's banned anyways - isn't it better in this day and age to make first year undergrads complete a compulsory research/internet/citation couple of lectures at the beginning of their course?
But failing someone just because wikipedia is a citation sounds a bit over the top. I don't like some videos but I don't hate on youtube.
Fair enough, I should have pointed out that from the outset students were explicitly told not to rely on Wikipedia. Further, failed papers didn't merely footnote a point as 'for more details see Wikipedia blah blah', but actually quoted Wikipedia content, and, in one case, the content was plagiarised.
At the end of the day, some students will inevitably end up consulting Wikipedia. While I agree that Wikipedia has its uses – for references to popular culture, for example – it is no substitute for actual research. I spend at least two sessions going over how to access scholarly materials in the library with my students, so they have no excuses for not being able to do independent research.
As for acknowledging that Wikipedia 'helped' in the construction of their work, I'm not a fan of the old 'Works Consulted' list at the end of the essay. I'm a 'Works Cited' kind of guy – if you don't cite it directly, I don't want to know about it. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? I read Dr. Seuss as a child, and that 'helped' in the construction of my essay. I know I'm drawing a ridiculously long bow, but the point is I'm far more interested in the critical materials that a student has digested and used.
I'll echo your: -fair enough-.
Doubtless we agree more than we disagree in a general sense. I know it's all about developing/displaying critical analytical and research abilities and that wikipedia, as Wales himself points out, should have no central place in that academic endeavour. If you say 'no wikipedia' and they cite or quote/plagiarise it then such stupidity deserves to be failed.
Wikipedia is a hodge-podge of good, bad and indifferent articles. I don't know that I'd characterise its usefulness only in terms of pop culture however. There are some seriously good articles on a whole raft of subjects and being able to separate the wheat/chaff is a damn useful skill, even as (or perhaps, especially as) an academic.
I'm sure I'm sounding like a wikievangelist to an extent but I'm not really. I add primary sources and occasionally polish a sentence but that's about my level of activity. I often go out of my way to avoid referencing it. But all this is beside the point - blog posting is not the same as an academic submission for which I totally agree that the proper research ought to be undertaken and cited. (I withdraw the 'gen. ref.' thought too - that was a scam back in Year 8!)
Dude! DUDE!!! I got you totally beat. I once attended a lecture on organizing psychological data for medical research papers, and the lecturer -- quite prominent in his field, and well respected at the school -- cited an article from "The Onion," and then proceeded to read an excerpt from the "article" aloud. Whaaa??? This was about three years ago. Every student in the room went bug-eyed. I asked him about it afterwards, and to my horror, my nodded gaily and discussed his "findings" in greater detail. It was clear that this was not a joke. He thought "The Onion" was a real newspaper. It broke my heart, and turned me into a horrid cynic. I have never forgiven academia.
*Sigh*
Seems reasonable enough to me. (Not an academic, although collected quite enough letters to be one.) Wikipedia is secondary sources (and dodgy ones at that).
Can't see there's a problem with starting with Wiki - it gives you a broad-spectrum 'taste' for the subject. To cite Wiki, though, is asking for it in my view.
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