On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 10:47 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is about a very useful study that brought home to college > students that wp is what it is, not what it isn't. > > http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/instant_mentor/weir22
Thanks, David. A very good article. It resonates with what I've been saying (or at least thinking) for some time, which is that Wikipedia is a starting point, no more than that. Sometimes a very bad starting point, sometimes a very good one. But a starting point, just like any other source (but more so than some sources). Critical thinking and asking what is missing, and what sources were used (or not used) by the author of what you are reading, is the key lesson. For so many Wikipedia articles, it is easy to do a bit of research and find extra sources that aren't mentioned, either because those sources were subsumed by the use of a newer source that built on the older source, or because the editor elected to make the Wikipedia article what it should be, which is an encyclopedic summary and starting point for further reading. Wikipedia articles can't aspire to be a definitive book or resource on a topic, but they can act as a useful summary for those who only want a summary, and a starting point for those who want to read and find out more. As you read around a topic and get to know the sources, and how they relate to each other, you get a real sense of how complete or balanced the article is. The list of sources will invariably tell you how good a Wikipedia article is in terms of how comprehensive it is. And further reading sections can point the way for future expansions of the article, or for the reader to go and find out more about the topic. Carcharoth _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l