Re: [DIYbio] OFF-TOPIC: taboo on using Wikipedia (school settings)

Wiki is used as an unverified info source of general knowledge by children.But academia has different views because of bias and incompleteness of info.Some topics are written by vested interests of business or some celebrities claiming facts and truth.Many topics and time frame details are twisted and false.Some details are hidden.For general reading with a pinch if salt it is ok.Otherwise no.

V.Rajagopalan
Sent from my iPad

On 31-Jul-2013, at 4:20 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgarvey@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:

> There is a false perception that Wikipedia is a random free-for-all and
> that it's exclusively written by untrained individuals. Further, that
> statements are poorly sourced.
>
> This varies widely between articles, but if you treat Wikipedia like
> any other source of information, you'll be fine. That is, if you insist
> on seeing reliable citations, observe the background on the article
> (check edit history and talk pages for useful debate on content), and
> when citing Wikipedia, *cite the current revision, not the wiki page*.
> That is, go to "history", and get a permalink to the present revision,
> so that your citation doesn't change under your derivative article.
>
> Of course, academics as a rule dislike Wikipedia for the same reason
> they dislike most distributed education platforms, so expect heavy bias
> against it.
>
> And, of course, bear in mind that even the best cited Wikipedia
> articles can be exactly as bad as the best cited research papers:
> written and supported by biased industry bodies, riddled with seemingly
> reasonable logical fallacies, and drawing false conclusions from sound
> data. Wikipedia is an Encyclopaedia. The only difference between it and
> other Encyclopaedias is that it grows and amends more rapidly, and has
> a long memory for prior state.
>
> On Tue, 30 Jul 2013 20:56:52 -0400
> Jeswin <phillyj101@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was reading the commentary article "We Must Face the Threats" in J
>> Neuro [1] and noticed that they cite Wikipedia. Now, I realize that
>> this isn't a regular journal article but teachers and professors seem
>> to treat Wikipedia as absolutely verboten. If an article in a journal
>> can cite Wikipedia, then why can't it be used as a source in informal
>> assignments like homeworks. A research paper would require harder
>> stuff but in my experience thus far, Wikipedia is shunned by
>> instructors.
>>
>> Comments?
>>
>> [1]http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/37/11417.full.pdf
>

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