Hello all. While I agree that the use of Wikipedia as a support for an argument or as a sole source of legitimation is bad scholarship, I think it is very appropriate as an illustration of an ongoing public debate or as a stepping stone for a theoretical discussion as a supplement to scholarly material. It has to do with context and the totality of the article; a discussion of Wiki etc. can open up a limited scholarly debate and supply evidence of alternative understandings. In itself, it is not enough. I see it in a lot of undergraduate term papers: The good ones have researched a bit and includes assigned readings, additional literature and internet resources, the bad ones have googled and use the top three as sources. To begin an article with a dictionary definition is, unless it is justified, on the level of beginning with "already the ancient Egyptians...". But Wikipedia or a dictionary is not in itself necessarily common knowledge. When that is said, you'll usually get a lot more from Wikipedia if you know the subject in the first place. All the best, Jesper Petersen. ---------------------------------------------- Jesper Aagaard Petersen Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies NTNU, Dragvoll NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tlf. 0047-735-98312 email: jesper.a.petersen@hf.ntnu.no -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christophe Prieur Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:23 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] using wikipedia articles in academic paper Quite agree with Ismael, a reference to Wikipedia sounds to me like a footnote saying 'hey dude, look at the dictionary', if not just 'rtfm'. If you think an explanation is needed for some technical term, put it either in a few words or in a whole section, but if you choose not to, then leave it to the grown-up reader to look for further information. My humble opinion of course but i guess you don't want to annoy those pedantic readers (including reviewers) that share it :) -- Christophe. Le 7 mai 09 à 09:50, Ismael Peña-López a écrit :
Dear Stefano,
Had I been the reviewer, I would have made the same observation.
It's not that I don't like Wikipedia: it's that I don't find it appropriate to cite _any_ dictionary and/or encyclopaedia at all in any kind of essay, including K-12.
And it's not that I take for granted that my potential audience might be aware of all the concepts, but I do take for granted that they are aware of the existence of dictionaries or handbooks (I neither include references to e.g. "Handbook of SPSS usage") they will use in case they don't understand a word or (say) "basic" concept.
In my opinion, it is opposite (as you already point at) to citing specific authors, or even specific methodologies developed by specific authors (following the former example I _would_ cite a statistical methodology developed and explained in a technical paper - but not on a generic handbook).
Put short, I personally find it annoying to find papers that begin as e.g. "Engagment, as it is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, deals with...". I'd rather have the main authors that have developed the term and have it defined by their own quotes.
Of course, strictly personal opinion :)
All the best,
Ismael Peña-López ICTlogy.net
Public Policies for Development and ICT4D School of Law and Political Science Open University of Catalonia _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/