email in response to not being allowed to use wikipedia as a source
blahblah,
The article about wikipedia was actually from Nature. What I read was a
summary at:
http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2148074/nature-endorses-wikipedia
I heard about it through my I101 class blog:
http://infoport.blogspot.com/ (towards the bottom)
I googled "Nature +wikipedia" and found a more COMPLETE ARTICLE at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html
The wikipedia analysis of the Nature article(+ more) can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review
The main point being that the accuracy difference isn't very large. Articles
that look like they were written by high school students might have been. That
would probably be a poor choice to use as a source (although it can be openly
edited, updated, and critized, which you certainly cannot do with a print
encyclopedia).
It seems to me like wikipedia has (or could have, depending on which
particular article is used) a major advantage: it has articles on a much broader
range and scope. It has articles about lesser known groups, religions, theories,
etc... This seems like it could be of particular interest to a folklore class.
/Pat Hosler
Popular Religion & Cyberspace class
The article about wikipedia was actually from Nature. What I read was a
summary at:
http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2148074/nature-endorses-wikipedia
I heard about it through my I101 class blog:
http://infoport.blogspot.com/ (towards the bottom)
I googled "Nature +wikipedia" and found a more COMPLETE ARTICLE at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html
The wikipedia analysis of the Nature article(+ more) can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review
The main point being that the accuracy difference isn't very large. Articles
that look like they were written by high school students might have been. That
would probably be a poor choice to use as a source (although it can be openly
edited, updated, and critized, which you certainly cannot do with a print
encyclopedia).
It seems to me like wikipedia has (or could have, depending on which
particular article is used) a major advantage: it has articles on a much broader
range and scope. It has articles about lesser known groups, religions, theories,
etc... This seems like it could be of particular interest to a folklore class.
/Pat Hosler
Popular Religion & Cyberspace class