April 4, 2006 readings — on blogs and wikis
I started to correct the very flawed Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl entry in Wikipedia, but decided not to since I didn’t want my edits to somehow influence the plagarism investigation into one of my students. But, let it be know that it is a terrible entry! instead, I added a brief overview of Project Renew to the Unexploded U.S. Explosives section of the Wikipedia entry on the Vietnam War.
With some hesitation, I do appreciate Wikipedia for what it is. I agree with Rosenzweig that it is a useful research starting point, but I will probably tell my students not to quote/cite it for research papers. Of course, I am still quite suspicious on online research, so my objections to Wikipedia are not personal, per se. However, it is frustrating to me that so many students see Wikipedia as the final arbiter of history — or maybe they’re just lazy?
Rosenzweig’s article convinced me that my innate distrust of Wikipedia is a bit of an overreaction and misplaced as the online encyclopedia compares quite favorably with professional publications such as Encarta and the American National Biography Online. Additionally, the ability to track changes and respond to errors/vandalism is a clear strength of Wikipedia. (see an earlier post about politics and Wikipedia here)
This week’s readings have given me an idea for a potentially interesting assignment for the class I’m teaching this summer: either in class or an outside paper, I will have students critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a Wikipedia entry. I have to think about this a bit more, but it might be a very useful way to convince students to question all sources, particularly unauthored, internet sources. What do you think about this potential assignment? Would you, if you were a freshman or sophomore at AU, take away something useful from such a project or would you feel insulted and belittled?
I sincerely enjoyed poking around the blogs and carnivals, but had to cut myself off because the midterms refused to grade themselves. I thought Mark Grimsley made a number of excellent points about the potential usefulness of blogging for academics — I particularly like the idea of making my work into a form of procrastination! What did you find most useful/interesting in the readings for this week?
I think it’s a great assignment. Both my roommate and I have had the same frustration with students who use Wikipedia as a “scholarly source”. I wonder if the problem is that they don’t really understand what a scholarly source is… Anyway, I think incoming freshman could really benefit from having a teacher lay out their expectations of sources (as in what a scholarly source is defined as). Additionally, a study of Wikipedia would really prove to be a good example of a site that can be helpful but only to a certain extent and for basic reference. I also think it’s a great idea to have the students edit / create an entry into Wikipedia. Even as a grad studnet, it really drove home the point that ANYONE can contribute and it can be a really unreliable source. Basically, I could create an entry and than quote myself on a paper!
Comment by Emily — April 4, 2006 @ 10:45 am
I agree with Emily that the assignment is an excellent idea. I think it would be a goood learning experience as well as an opportunity to get kids more involved with history by possibly motivating them to create/edit their own entry.
Comment by Ed Conroy — April 4, 2006 @ 12:48 pm
Like Ed and Emily, I think the assignment you mentioned is a great idea. No matter what we think about the quality of Wikipedia’s historical articles, we can’t deny the fact that people use them. (And not always to good effect, as was the case with the student you mentioned.) If we, as historians and teachers, can’t prevent people from using Wikipedia, then perhaps we can at least encourage them to critically about it. An assigment like the one you mentioned might lead students to see the limitations of Wikipedia. Even if they continued to use Wikipedia (which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing), they would hopefully use it as a start to research, not as a substitute for research.
Comment by Phillip Calderwood — April 4, 2006 @ 1:56 pm
Love the assignment idea - to me, the best thing about Wikipedia is that by exposing the mechanisms of knowledge production, it forces readers to think about sources much more critically, by extension casting the same shadow over other “more reputable” sources. In other words, the great question I love asking undergrads is “okay, so what makes this book so much more authoritative than wikipedia?”
Comment by Josh — April 4, 2006 @ 2:12 pm
Not to sound like a broken record–but you share my frustration with Wikipedia and obviously have been impacted in a more illustrative way as to the potential problems of the site…
Your assignment sounds great. Its an excellent way to point out to kids to acknowledge the site’s flaws–and also doesn’t provide a loophole when they get marked down for using it.
Comment by Priya — April 4, 2006 @ 3:47 pm