In class on Thursday we read an article about Middlebury College banning students from citing Wikipedia as a source in papers. The article goes on to explain that the web site is not a great source when writing a paper because there could be and are errors in the research. Sandra Ordonez says that “there is no guarantee an article is 100 percent correct” but thinks that it is a good starting point when researching. I agree with this because you have to start research somewhere, even if it isn’t a source one will use when actually writing a paper and the website does supply good starting information. Also, the website does have a bibliography for each topic, which is a great resource because then one can look at the sources the writer of the website used to further their research and may even find great primary or secondary sources. So, I agree with Middlebury college in banning the use of Wikipedia as a source when writing a paper, but I think that it shouldn’t be completely disregarded.
Another thing that I was puzzled by when reading this article was that college students in the history department thought that it was fine to site an encyclopedia in a paper. I was taught to not do that in high school so I was a little confused as to why college students thought that it was ok. Which brings me to another point, Middlebury didn’t specify what the punishment was going to be if a student violated this rule of not citing Wikipedia in papers. I think that when the college presents this topic to the students or receives another paper with Wikipedia cited, the faculty should educate the students on why Wikipedia isn’t a good source to use and why there could be false information, instead of punishing the students on the first offense. Perhaps picking a Wikipedia site and showing by example the error that are found would help educate students on the discrepancies. Through education, instead of punishment, students will learn proper research procedures.
Additionally, we read another article by Lester L. Faigley titled Rhetorics Fast and Slow. This article explained the difference between fast and slow rhetorics. For example, text messaging is a fast rhetoric, while a slow rhetoric would be writing multiple drafts of a paper until you have the final draft. I think that Faigley would say Wikipedia is a fast rhetoric and would agree that if Middlebury wants to ban the use of citing Wikipedia than the faculty should educate the students first because he thinks that “the fate of future generations will depend on how well the students we teach can use slow rhetoric.” This is another example of how students need to be taught how to research in a scholarly manner.
3 comments:
I don't know if I just had some bad teachers but I don't think that I was ever taught not to cite encyclopedias in a paper. But I totally agree that a site like Wikipedia shouldn't be totally banned because I think that it could be a useful starting point.
I was also taught not to use encyclopedias in papers. I also had an insanely strict English teacher my freshman year of high school. I agree that it is unfair to punish students on the first offense and they should specify how they plan on dealing with this problem and what punishment will be implemented.
I don't ever remember my high school English teachers making it clear we could not cite encyclopedias in our papers. Maybe it was because Wikipedia wasn't used to the extent it is used now, or citing encyclopedias never was a big issue. Anyways, I agree with your statement that teachers should use education, not punishment, to teach students the proper research methods. I think it is too strict to punish on the first offence, and believe that constructive advice and criticism is a much better procedure to correct the problem.
Post a Comment