By Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.
Read almost any student essay or term paper turned in for a
college class and you are likely to find at least two or three citations or
quotes from Wikipedia. In fact,
Wikipedia is often the only research source used by students.
Wikipedia, which was the brainchild of Jimmy Wales
(described by Larry Sanger at memorywiki.com http://www.memorywiki.org/en/The_Origins_of_Wikipedia%2C_2001%2C_by_Larry_Sanger),
was envisioned as an open-source, completely free, collaborative
encyclopedia. The neologism,
“wikipedia,” was coined from “wiki,” meaning “fast” in Hawaiian, and “pedia”
from encyclopedia. It was an overnight
success. By 2001, there were more than
100,000 entries.
It’s understandable that there would be such a proliferation
of Wikipedia citations, and what might be, in some cases, an over-reliance on
what can be an unreliable source of information. Wikipedia entries are almost always the first
to come up in a search on Google. This
is not surprising, considering that when Wikipedia had issues with Internet
traffic jams and inadequate server space, Google cut a deal to help out with
hosting and bandwidth (http://dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grassroots/2005/02/index.html).
To give one an idea, here’s an experiment. Conduct a search on Google for each of the following
terms: Stalinism, fauvism, putrescine
(or putrescene), hippies (or hippie).
You’ll find that the Wikipedia entry will be number one for each one,
except for “fauvism,” where it comes in as number 4. When it’s so simple, convenient, and clear,
who would not be tempted to use it?
Further, with fears of being accused of plagiarism, what online learner
would not cite the Wikipedia entry properly?
Never mind that the “Works Cited” or “References” section at the end of
the paper consists completely of Wikipedia citations.
But, what’s wrong with that?
Aren’t the entries well-written, clear, and easy to understand? Aren’t there links to useful primary
sources? Even if one acknowledges that
Wikipedia is a secondary, rather than primary source, is it not as good as the
average encyclopedia, and perhaps even better?
Here’s the problem: As
opposed to well-established conventional online reference sources, where the
contributors’ credentials have been reviewed, Wikipedia is collaborative venue
where anyone who is willing to register a name with their contribution can
instantly modify the entry. The names,
by the way, do not show up on the Wikipedia entry. Most learners who are writing papers have not
the slightest idea that the material they are citing as sterling truth could be
pretty tarnished.
In contrast, a truly peer-reviewed journal would have
undergone a different process. Peer
review, in a referenced work, obliges unnamed, anonymous subject matter experts
to evaluate, in good faith, an article, work, or piece of agenda. Although boosterism, unconscious censorship
and bias are probably impossible to eliminate, peer review represents a trust,
a kind of compact with the world at large to do one’s best to maintain a high
standard.
Although many Wikipedia entries are almost astonishingly
extensive, informative, and accurate, many are astonishingly not so. Let’s look at the four entries we looked
up. Is there evidence of bias in any of
them? Are some of the factual elements
simply not factual? The entry on
“hippie” is filled with extremely useful information about the counterculture
movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
However, if one reads closely, there are slight contradictions within
the entry, and there are enough voice changes that it appears to have been the
result of at least five or six separate contributors. While, in theory, they would provide useful
checks and balances, what usually happens is a subtle form of agenda promotion. Further, there are significant gaps in the
information. For example, the author(s)
of the entry on “hippies” claim the movement had origins in the early 1900s
among certain vegetarian, back-to-nature groups. However, the origins of utopian communities
formed around communal, antinomian precepts or organizing principles extends
back at least 200 years in America alone, not to mention Europe.
This is not to say that Wikipedia is not a fantastically
useful and valuable source of information.
It is not to discount or disparage in any way the brilliance of
collaborations and software that allow contributions from individuals anywhere
and at any time. Certainly, refereed
journals and peer-review are not without flaws and bias.
However, flaws in “authority” and peer-review
notwithstanding, it is very important to realize what Wikipedia is, and to look
at it as an extremely valuable tool. It
is a great first step in a quest for good research and background
material. One should try to resist looking
at Wikipedia as the absolute nonpareil source of information for a research
paper.
[Listen to the companion podcast at:
http://community.elearners.com/blogs/inside_elearning/attachment/433.ashx 3.7 MB]