Using Wikipedia responsibly in academic research.

What's Wrong With Wikipedia

Teacher Concern #1 Information is too easy for anyone to edit.

Creating a user account is not a free pass to make arbitrary changes. Wikipedia says, "What is contributed is more important than who contributes it. To remain, the content must be free of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_violations">copyright restrictions</a>&nbsp;and contentious material&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons">about living people</a>. It must fit within Wikipedia's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy">policies</a>, including being&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiable">verifiable</a>&nbsp;against a published&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source">reliable source</a>. Editors'&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view">opinions</a>&nbsp;and beliefs and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Original_research">unreviewed research</a>&nbsp;will not remain...many experienced editors are&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Watchlist">watching</a>&nbsp;to ensure that edits are improvements." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About">Wikipedia: About</a>

Teacher Concern #2 How can we trust the changes being made are done with integrity?

"There are tens of thousands of regular&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editors">editors</a>&nbsp;– everyone from expert scholars to casual readers. With the exception of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy">blocked users</a>, anyone who visits the site can edit it, and this fact has encouraged the contribution of a tremendous amount of content. There are mechanisms that help community members watch for bad edits, a few hundred administrators with special powers to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enforcement">enforce good behavior</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ArbCom">a judicial-style arbitration committee</a>&nbsp;that considers the few situations remaining unresolved, and decides on&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Active_sanctions">withdrawal or restriction of editing privileges</a>&nbsp;or other sanctions when needed after all other consensus remedies have been tried." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editorial_oversight_and_control">Wikipedia: Editorial Oversight and Control</a>

Wikipedia has strong core principles. They're called the "five pillars." "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia... It is not a soapbox... advertisement... or experiment. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute. Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility. Wikipedia has no firm rules... It can evolve over time." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars">Wikipedia: Five Pillars</a>.

Teacher Concern #5 I know students will use Wikipedia. How can I direct them to use it responsibly?

Teach students to read laterally. Meaning: have lots of tabs open to search results from many reliable sources. Compare the information you have found across all your open tabs, including the Wikipedia article. If the information on Wikipedia seems verified by several reputable sources (newspapers, experts, government agencies, etc.) use those websites in your research and cite them.

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia">Wikipedia says</a>, "As with any source, especially one of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Wikipedia information if possible."

Teach students to expand their topics. Meaning: become acquainted with related topical search terms to broaden your understanding and writing with quality content. Use Wikipedia's "See also" links.

Use the "See also" links to take you to more Wikipedia articles and then harvest citations from those articles to lateral read on the expanded topics.

Teach students to harvest citations. Meaning: go through Wikipedia's articles and use their citations to lead you directly to information from other sources that have been verified per Wikipedia's policy. (Or <a href="bookcreator://page/9JwmSkkdTdWny5WPIqAfWA/left">pillar #2 of Wikipedia's five pillars</a>.) The citations may be superscript numbers within an article or at the bottom of the page under References.

You can view the page history on every article. There are some hardcore professionals who vigorously monitor the pages where they have contributed. Changes are signaled, discussed, and are made available for consideration. The experts work very collaboratively.

Final thoughts from Wikipedia itself: "As with any source, especially one of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Wikipedia information if possible. For many purposes, but particularly in academia, Wikipedia may not be an acceptable source;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia#cite_note-1">[1]</a>&nbsp;indeed, some professors and teachers may reject Wikipedia-sourced material completely.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia#cite_note-2">[2]</a>&nbsp;This is especially true when it is used without corroboration. Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_source">tertiary sources</a>&nbsp;such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information—citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade. However, much of the content on Wikipedia is itself referenced, so an alternative is to cite the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source">reliable source</a>&nbsp;rather than the article itself." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia">Wikipedia: Citing Wikipedia</a>

Good <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck">luck</a> to you!

I made an account and have to establish a good reputation by going through a lot of exercises. I can't progress unless I do the things Wikipedia requires me to do.

"Featured articles are considered to be some of the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians">Wikipedia's editors</a>."

"Administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (such as&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VD">vandalism</a>, abusive&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOCK">sockpuppetry</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WAR">edit wars</a>, etc.) on any topic."

Select articles can be accompanied by audio. This feature will become more common.

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#full">Wikipedia: Protection Policy</a>

If you closely read the revisions shown here, you will see this article on nuclear fusion was edited in the middle of the night and clarified and improved just a few hours later.

Don't mess around with those nuclear physicists, y'all!

Once you inserted yourself into your hometown's page, the best part of the shenanigan was watching to see how quickly someone deleted your name (a.k.a. corrected the article).

People were concerned misinformation would spread because users could insert silliness into any article. Kids might believe conspiracy theories! Kids might write research papers about complete nonsense! There might be a blurring between opinions and facts! How will we ever know? (This was before social media possibly allowed that to become a reality).

Teacher Concern #4 How will kids know if the information is quality?

Wikipedia lets users know (right at the top of the page) when an article needs some work. Here are some examples:

Cite this website - not the Wikipedia article.

Teacher Concern #3 Controversial topics, especially ones used for argumentative writing, are too susceptible to information vandalism.

"In some circumstances, pages may need to be&nbsp;protected&nbsp;from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when a specific damaging event has been identified that can not be prevented through other means such as a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy">block</a>. Otherwise, Wikipedia is built on the principle that&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki">anyone can edit it</a>, and it, therefore, aims to have as many of its pages as possible open for public editing so that anyone can add material and correct errors. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection and when each protection should and should not be applied...A protected page is marked at its top-right by a padlock icon." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#full">Wikipedia: Protection Policy</a>

That may have been true in the beginning, but Wikipedia is over 20 years old now; things have changed. Wikipedia's creators intended it to be a quality resource. Since this was their goal many steps have been taken to maintain its integrity. It wouldn't exist now if attention wasn't paid to high standards and excellence.

Verified users earn status and are given more "free rein."

What's the big deal? Why do teachers say we can't use it?

Wikipedia Wiki = quick (Hawaiian) Pedia = encyclopedia Wikipedia is a quick encyclopedia. It is meant to change frequently. To accomplish these fast edits, it was designed so anyone could create pages or change a page. A long time ago, it freaked teachers out. How could we allow students to use information that hasn't been proven? Who knows who's changing these pages? A favorite early activity was to insert yourself into the list of famous people from your hometown.

Antique paper texture

That doesn't mean your librarian is giving you permission to use it if your teacher already said, "NO WIKIPEDIA!" (This is often because the editors of Wikipedia operate with usernames. Citing an actual person and using their real name is very important in academic research.) It also doesn't mean you should use Wikipedia and skip citing it. However, I will show you why I like it and how to use it correctly.

Name

Safari may block some audio or video from playing automatically and ‘read to me’ will skip these. You can configure this in Safari’s preferences.