This is fun. On one side are the bloggers and social media advocates; on the other side are the academics. The question is whether students should cite Wikipedia. Guess where I stand.
5 Responses to “Wiki wars”
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
The author
My tweets
- What a year it's been for #prstudent #bestPRblogs. @UlsterPRStudent named as top university for student blogging… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- @sequins16 Thank you. I'm a believer too, obviously, but it's a pity that new voices struggle to get heard as there… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- #prstudent #bestPRblogs has been especially strong in recent weeks. But I'm calling an end next Thursday (before Ea… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- @PR_Place @jessicapardoePR We published this guest post on the topic last year: prplace.com/blog/posts/201… 2 weeks ago
- Here's my pick of #prstudent posts in #CommsSchool and #bestPRblogs. (Scroll to end). prplace.com/blog/posts/201… 2 weeks ago
My latest Instagram photos
Content
Academic Behind the Spin Books Branding Business Campaigns Careers Celebrities Consultancy Consumer Corporate communications Crisis education and training Marketing Media Media relations Online PR People Personal Politics PR history Profession Publishing Social media Spin Students Uncategorized Web/Tech Weblogs Writing
I think I know where you stand. Anyway majority of students always use Wikipedia to look for information. Quite often references in the end of Wikipedia’s entree go to the essay’s bibliography to avoid conflict with academics. It looks like social media popularity is having a huge impact on academic process too.
I wonder how long it will take for Leeds Met to start running the Social Media course.
Not everything that can be learnt needs to be taught. So engagement with social media is optional at undergraduate level, but I’m running a course at Master’s level including blogging as an assessed element.
The nature of wikipedia and the need to post academic or other references is its strength. From a students perspective, while I probably wouldn’t take more than a cursory glance at the content, I would use the bibliography as a basis for a wide ranging literature review.
I instinctively agreed with you Richard, but I also agree with Katya, that a canny student may well look at Wikipedia to start with but reference something more scholarly once they get into a topic.
I find Wikipedia a very useful intro to ideas which are new to me and if it makes learning accessible that’s got to be a good thing.
I also heard on Radio 4’s ‘Thinking Allowed’ programme that some people have done some fairly rudimentary comparisons and found Wikipedia entries to be more accurate than Encylopedia Britannica.
Jeremy Clarkson once famously said he checked his Wikipedia page to find 90% of it wasn’t true. The question is can be said for some academic pages? Can they be classed as safe, reliable sources?
Personally, I treat online tools such as Wikipedia as a ‘trap’ when I’m doing essays- it all seems too easy to get hold of the information! I definitely prefer take the academic approach and find the information myself rather than ‘Cache’ quotes from Websites (another trick that is popular with the last minute student!)