On Thursday 07 May 2009, Stefano De Paoli wrote:
I was thinking, what is the general practice in using wikipedia in academic paper writing? and are there limits/rules/good practices that you follow, both in writing and in review processes?
I believe scholars overload the functionality of citations without thinking about it, and so get confused. In my class bibliography policy I note: [[ Listing ones sources can perform at least one of the following functions: a citation identifies the subject of a claim, it substantiates a claim, or it identifies an influence or resource. For example, consider the following three sentences: 1. Lanier (2006) believes Wikipedia is a form of online collectivism. 2. Because science related articles on Wikipedia are roughly as accurate as Britannica (Giles 2005) Wikipedia should be recommended as a reference work. 3. The notion of an Internet encyclopedia dates back to 1993 (Wikipedia 2006i; Wilson and Reynard1994 ). In the first example, the reference is the subject of the sentence, that is all. In the second sentence I am incorporating an external authoritative claim into the body of a (hypothetical) argument. In the third example, I am documenting the influence of Wikipedia (so as not to plagiarize) and providing it as a resource (as it is the best introduction for the reader); but I'm substantiating the claim via an external authority (a primary source). ]] My work typically has dozens of citations to Wikipedia in the first sense, as it is the subject of my work; I would not use it in the second sense unless it is a Wikipedia article about itself; and I would try not to use it in the third sense for fear of prompting the concern you encountered, but Wikipedia article's are becoming the best source of introduction/reference material. In this case, for a paper, perhaps one could have a note saying such references are only provided for reference, or note "technical terms are often well defined at Wikipedia...".