Uni - Quick Question about referencing + Wikipedia

Werewolf said:
Check the orignal sources and quote them.

Your lecturers have a fit because Wikipedia is simply not reliable.
Sure you can use it to point you to sources that are checked factually before publication, but Wiki isn't and is about as reliable on it's own as me requesting advice on here for an obscure medical condition - the advice might be correct or it might leave me pushing miss Daisy up.
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Yes it's always best to cite an original text. The only time it's acceptable is when your referencing a summary article I.e. "An overview of the state of the art in fingerprint recognition is in Maltoni et al (2003)"

D. Maltoni, D. Maio, A. Jain and S. Prabhakar, Handbook of Fingerprint Recognition, Springer, 2003


If your referencing things a lot serious consider using LaTeX with Bibtex and Jabref
 
pre1twa said:
As a general rule of thumb; the more trivial the subject you are studying the more pedantic academics get about referencing... So if you are studying english or history you'd better make sure that your referencing is impeccable :)
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You couldn't get above a 2:2 at University of Manchester School of Arts without 100% accurate referencing whilst I was there.
 
I think when I was at Uni certain pieces of work would need say 10+ references as a minimum. They used to state that only two Wiki references were allowed and the rest would be discounted.

Seemed pretty fair, but if in doubt, just check with your lecturer!
 
Stay away from wiki. If your in the first year then they may let you off.

Its not an accurate academic source. If you did qoute from wiki you would need to reference the original souce anyway. So you may as well look at/use the original source in the first place. Provided it is reliable.

Go and read some more books, there is nothing in wiki that you wont find in a good academic library. Or search through some academic articles. There should be thousands available to you from your uni.

Gil.
 
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