yeah because theres a scientific journal for every piece of history isnt there ?
thats the problem.
They dont. They state is as blind fact. The person in the link only knows its false because he made it up !
Wikipedia vandalism copied by research websites
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yeah because theres a scientific journal for every piece of history isnt there ?
thats the problem.
They dont. They state is as blind fact. The person in the link only knows its false because he made it up !
Then i think any sane student would know not to use a random internet article with 0 sources cited.
That's when the sort of source evaluation you learn in year 9 history lessons comes into play and you see the useless 'source' for what it is.
yeah because theres a scientific journal for every piece of history isnt there ?
Or a book or other obviously reputable source yes. Anyone doing research should know how to determine a sources veracity, references.com, ask.com etc are not sources by any standard.
I have a Cell Biology lecturer who routinely vandalises relevent Wikipedia articles 2 weeks before submission dates for assignments. He has caught out more than a few students who have submitted utter crap because they diddnt check the source
I think behaviour like that is despicable. A lecturer, who is in fact meant to be educating is spreading misinformation, Wikipedia is all about a community sharing knowledge, and in that community, the lecturer is a vile murderer. Vandalising a wikipedia page may be a tool for a lecturer to spot students using wikipedia to further their knowledge on a particular subject, but it may also give curious minds completely the wrong idea, spread misinformation throughout the internet, and generally detract from the immensely valuable resource that wikipedia should be. I can only hope that the lecturer fixes the damage caused when the paper has been handed in, if some well meaning wikipedian has not done already.
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Soldato
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This is disgusting. It destroys everything Wikipedia stands for :/I have a Cell Biology lecturer who routinely vandalises relevent Wikipedia articles 2 weeks before submission dates for assignments. He has caught out more than a few students who have submitted utter crap because they diddnt check the source
By all means tell your students that they are not to use Wikipedia (and you can catch students who use Wikipedia without ruining it for others) but for the love of God, why would you try to ruin arguably the greatest information resource the world has ever had?
Agree entirely. Lecturers should NOT be using a community driven encyclopedia for millions as their own personal plagiarism tester.
You've missed the point. To follow on with the example in the OP, any of those sites now in the google results can be cited as a source on the Wikipedia article. Yet those sites' source is the (vandalized) Wikipedia article. A site titled www.african-americaninventors.org would be seen as a reputable source by many students.
Contrary to many others in this thread. I have little problem with the vandelising of technical subjects on wikipedia by the lecturers. It's absolutely chock full of crap on a vast variety of subjects and if you rely on it as a student you are an absolute moron.
Using it for trivial knowledge is fine, relying on it for assessed piece, a galactic no.
Using it for trivial knowledge is fine, relying on it for assessed piece, a galactic no.
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everyone and there dogs know wikipedia is a great starting point, but nothing will beat digging into text books.
unfortuantely the die hard academics of this world refuse to except it in anyway and incidents like the OP linked to dont exactly help the situation - that tutor is part of the problem not the solution ....arrogant ***** he must be.
unfortuantely the die hard academics of this world refuse to except it in anyway and incidents like the OP linked to dont exactly help the situation - that tutor is part of the problem not the solution ....arrogant ***** he must be.
GCSE and below I assume? In which case it doesn't really matter. Anyone at A-Level and especially degree/post grad level using any unverified website as a reference should be shot... The only websites really eligable would be direct source ones (such as government PDFs off websites for government stats) and potentially other university sites for diagrams (which you know what you are looking for)...
Except those sites cannot be cited as sources as none of those sites cite where or how they got their information.
They either need to cite what sources they used, or have first hand text/video/audio that the report is based on.
It shouldn't be though, that's the point. You should be evaluating sources before using them, plucking a random website from nowhere is not a source.
You're the one missing the point - any sort of site that would blindly copy information from wikipedia is not a good source and any student worth their salt should be able to identify this accordingly.
Sure they can be cited as a source on wikipedia but ultimately that doesn't matter and is one of the reasons why wikipedia needs to be taken with a pinch of salt in the first place, there is no minimum standard to the sources people use for it.
Nicely counterproductive. So, for all we know, if it wasn't for the a-holes vandalising wikipedia in order to prove to their classes that the content might be vandalised, the wikipedia potentially would be relatively reliable source of info and bibliography?
The amount of complete rubbish and rumours printed in books before internet era is just shocking. In many cases "peers" would go into battles for years afterwards debating about things quoted by one author, bickering about stuff already published, while in the same time endless masses of students would base their diplomas and reviews on those "facts" and paving ways to next generation of books and in process making complete made up lies into self fulfilling prophecy. Queue the internet era, where most things can be checked and corrected "on the fly" and you still have idiots making stuff up, but this time not out of incontrollable mythomania or to sell their books better, but to "teach a lesson" of some kind to their students. How bizarre.
The amount of complete rubbish and rumours printed in books before internet era is just shocking. In many cases "peers" would go into battles for years afterwards debating about things quoted by one author, bickering about stuff already published, while in the same time endless masses of students would base their diplomas and reviews on those "facts" and paving ways to next generation of books and in process making complete made up lies into self fulfilling prophecy. Queue the internet era, where most things can be checked and corrected "on the fly" and you still have idiots making stuff up, but this time not out of incontrollable mythomania or to sell their books better, but to "teach a lesson" of some kind to their students. How bizarre.
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I find that Wikipedia can often be a good starting point for learning about a variety of topics but as with any source you should always try to check it for veracity. I can't say I approve of lecturers messing with it just to prove a point, it's just self-absorbed and unnecessary - they are not the only people who utilise the resource so filling articles with misinformation ruins it for others which I find unacceptable.
I haven't missed any point other than for a site to be considered citation for Wikipedia it must also declare its source.
If a student looks at an article, and it has a citation, that's going to be all the "proof" some will "need".
To say Wikipedia is a "terrible source" as a post-grad demonstrator on my course once said, it was interesting to observe that a year or two later lecturers were citing it as a reference in their classes!
I agree that sources should be verified but there's only so much that can be done.
I agree that sources should be verified but there's only so much that can be done.