Reference Materials - Discussing Wikipedia

While filling in the gaps and learning about different reference materials, I was reminded of an anecdote that happened fairly recently in my school library. Students were working on a short activity involving Morse code. They were practicing writing their name in written “dot” and “dash” format, followed by a secret message they could write for a friend if they had extra time.

At one point during their work a small group of students asked for another copy of the “code sheet”, which indicated what each letter and number was coded as in Morse code (eg. the letter E = one dot). As I went back to my document to print off a few more copies, a few of the grade 4 students noticed my “from Wikipedia” citation at the bottom of the page. They asked, incredulously, “This came from Wikipedia? They could be lying on there you know!”. Clearly they had been given the “Wikipedia” talk before!

James Kanjo at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

What followed was a short class discussion about the use of Wikipedia, which I indicated that it’s a good starting place for researching a topic. What was interesting to me is that this student’s reaction to my use of Wikipedia lines up with co-founder’s Larry Sangers comments in Berinstein’s articles: that Wikipedia suffers from not merely a lack a credibility (which it arguably does), but more specifically a “lack of public perception of credibility” (2006). Is this unwarranted? Maybe, maybe not - I think taking a critical view of Wikipedia is important, but that doesn’t mean we need to avoid it at all costs.

Despite being a nearly 10 year old article, I do still like Harris’s Rules of Wikipedia:

“1) At least three sources are required to verify research.
2) General encyclopedias like Wikipedia are a great place to get started, however …
3) Serious research projects cannot cite general knowledge encyclopedias.” (2007)

These rules strongly convey the need for a critical eye when viewing information on Wikipedia, but don’t outright prevent it’s usage, which I believe is a great use for this resource.



Works Cited

Berinstein, P. (2006). Wikipedia and Britannica: The Kid's All Right (And So's the Old Man) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Searcher 14(3), 16-26.

Harris, C. (2007). Can we make peace with Wikipedia? (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. School Library Journal, 53(6), 26.

James Kanjo at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons