I got my copy of Psychological Methods today and was reading
the article by Peter Bentler and Albert Satorra  titled "Testing
Model Nesting and Equivalence" (about testing models in 
structural equation modeling) and I was somewhat shocked and
surpised to see on page 117 a footnote that included a quote
from the Wikipedia entry on "Continuous Probability Distributions".
Now, Bentler and Satorra as no slouches but I find it hard to
believe that they would cite Wikipedia especially for such a technical
topic instead of a standard textbook on probability theory.
I assume that the entry is correct and Bentler and Satorra are
competent enough to know whether it is right or wrong. However,
recently on the EdStat mailing list it was lamented by a few members
about how some of the elementary statistics entries on Wikipedia 
were incorrect or needed modication.

Perhaps I have been limited in articles that I read but have research
articles in the APA journals and those of professional organization
been using Wikipedia as a credible source?  If so, how widespread
is the practice?  This raises the question of whether or the extent to
which students can/should use Wikipedia as source/reference instead
of, say, journal articles.

-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]



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