Quote:
Originally Posted by tdvance
"That makes it poor reference material, you're not sure what you are citing."--
that would probably be why
1. Wikipedia encourages citations for all statements of fact.
2. most schools teach that you shouldn't cite encyclopedias in general, but use them to find other closer-to-primary references.
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Do schools suggest accessing
Wikipedia as a means of finding primary references? It seems to me they'd be better teaching people good search techniques so that they can find their own primary references.
Anyone considering using
Wikipedia as a reference certainly needs to take a look at the discussion page for their chosen entry. It's surprising how often even apparently innocuous entries (
hhEb09'1's "country statistics", for instance) conceal a group of single-issue loons knocking lumps out of each other behind the scenes. If you encounter such activity, you then also begin to wonder about the selection criteria for the citations currently on display.
Grant Hutchison