To cite or not to cite
Middlebury College history department bans students from citing Wikipedia. I still think citing it is better than copying from it without citation, which this policy seems likely to cause more of...
Comments:
None: This only makes Middlebury look bad
2007-01-27T12:46:44Z
These professors are supposed to be teaching their students to pursue research, which entails gathering together primary and important secondary sources and making an analysis. As the article points out, encyclopedias have never been well-regarded for this kind of work. If the professors were doing their job correctly, it should be easy to mark a student down, explaining that a tertiary source does not meet academic research standards. Singling Wikipedia out like this gives the impression that they do not in fact explain this to their students. I'm surprised this would happen at a small liberal arts college. That's the kind of thing big universities are known for, e.g. banning a particular tool or resource (rather than require critical thinking on the part of the students) in order to make the professor's job easier.
2007-01-27T12:46:44Z
These professors are supposed to be teaching their students to pursue research, which entails gathering together primary and important secondary sources and making an analysis. As the article points out, encyclopedias have never been well-regarded for this kind of work. If the professors were doing their job correctly, it should be easy to mark a student down, explaining that a tertiary source does not meet academic research standards. Singling Wikipedia out like this gives the impression that they do not in fact explain this to their students. I'm surprised this would happen at a small liberal arts college. That's the kind of thing big universities are known for, e.g. banning a particular tool or resource (rather than require critical thinking on the part of the students) in order to make the professor's job easier.