The Writer's Pulse

Wikipedia is an infinitely useful source of information on the Internet. It’s also a dirty word in college classrooms.

Most of them, anyway.

The funny thing is, my journalism professor was actually neutral to the whole idea. He didn’t have a problem with Wikipedia, with a few conditions; he wouldn’t necessarily appreciate Wikipedia being on your Works Cited page. But as a place for general information, it’s effective enough. I see it in much the same way.

I look at it like this: Wikipedia is a good starting point. It’s accuracy will always be debatable (it is the nature of Wikipedia — the fact that anyone can edit its articles at any time — that casts its validity as a credible source into question), and many would discourage you from using it as a primary source regardless of how accurate any particular article might be.

In truth, however, any source is safe as long as it is not your only source. Cross-examination is your friend. Always double-check. Understand that, on the Internet or in books or on billboards, even a seemingly legitimate source may in fact be false.

So, in my opinion, Wikipedia is safe as long as everyone understands that it isn’t always safe.

EDU In Review covers this philosophy very well:

You just need to use Wikipedia carefully. Always verify what you find on Wikipedia with other sources. This isn’t hard to do, as Wiki pages have their sources listed. In fact, a better strategy is to read the Wiki page for information, and then get a hold of the sources that were used to create the page. Read these sources, and cite them in your paper, and use those sources to find additional sources. This may require you to go to the library, like we old school people did. – Is Wikipedia A Good Source For College Term Papers?

Back in 2006, one of the co-founders of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, discouraged anyone from using the website in their academic works. However, even high-brow researchers and scholars are turning to Wikipedia, though not always for information gathering:

Along with the increasing number of citations, another indicator that Wikipedia may be gaining respectability is its citation by well-known scholars. Indeed, several scholars both cite Wikipedia and are themselves subjects of Wikipedia entries, including Gayatri Spivak, Yochai Benkler, Hal Varian, Henry Jenkins, Jerome McGann, Lawrence Buell, and Donna Haraway. – Is Wikipedia Becoming a Respectable Academic Source?

However you choose to look at it, community-driven services like Wikipedia are the future, and it’s actually remarkable that the Wikipedia community has been able to police itself and maintain the accuracy that it has.

Comment like you mean it

How often do you use Wikipedia? What’s your view on its legitimacy as a resource?

Hey, media, we’ve been over this: stop blowing things out of proportion.

Chances are you’ve heard about Geoffrey Stanford, the high school junior who pointed out an error in a Kansas writing test. The error was a simple matter of word usage — the word “omission” was mistakenly used in place of the word “emission.”

Stanford has been in the media spotlight ever since.

Now, I get the irony of the situation. The student corrects the teacher. But is something like this really newsworthy? If anything, the media shouldn’t be lauding Stanford as a grammatical genius; they should be questioning the Kansas Department of Education and their ability to edit.

I’m also sure that the majority of people on Earth who have a basic knowledge of the English language understand the difference between “emission” and “omission.” Even then, it’s only a single letter typo away.

Still, it’s not Stanford’s fault the media jumped on this story.

They tend to be desparate in that way, after all.

I keep coming across this article by the Associated Press, which surfaced a few days ago:

“Westlake High School officials misspelled “education” on the diplomas distributed at graduation.” – Daily News

Apparently, the officials of Westlake High School accidentally printed “educaiton” on the diplomas.

I often wonder why people feel the need to say someone misspelled something when clearly it is a case of an accidental typo. And yet you hear this stuff constantly when someone misplaces a single letter on a print-out. “It’s been the subject of mockery on local radio,” they say.

I mean, sure, it’s funny. It’s ironic. But let’s call it like it is.

Before entering college, I often wondered just how beneficial it would be. Did I really need a degree to do something I was already doing? Was there any benefit in attending classes, or would I just be joining the grind to get that little bit of paper that says I’m capable? Read the rest of this entry »