Ultimately, the is a problem in the culture of learning that teachers and 
scholars will have to settle with firm rules and where warranted very bad 
grades.  What we are seeing is the pedagogical equivalent of Say's Law: 
inaccurate information drives out accurate information.

One of my best students in CT., one who went on to do distinguished graduate 
studies in Europe, told me one day that he just couldn't find the 
information I suggested he needed for a research paper.  I told him that 
historians, librarians, and archivists just could not say such things, even 
though it was occasionally true that information could not be retrieved.  I 
explained that everyone else in academia, at least on the humanities and 
social science side of the house, depended on these three professions and 
their practitioners for precise information necessary to their own work.

He was instantly "enlightened."

We are at a moment equivalent to the handoff between scrolls and books.  It 
produces cognitive dissonance among those of us who are book people but we 
need to take courage.  One thing the scroll people taught the book people 
was that books needed to be as accurate as manuscript copied scrolls had 
been.  We may have a distaste for the new information technology, but that 
is an aesthetic matter.  What we must do while we can is to insure that the 
academically usable parts of the new technology are as precise as are the 
books we treasure.  Perhaps the Google library project, once it overcomes 
its copyright legal problems, will be the answer to Wikipedia.

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edwards-Hewitt, Terilee" 
<[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:51 PM
Subject: getting students not to use Wikipedia


An even bigger problem is getting students to NOT use Wikipedia.  Even if it 
is clearly stated in the assignment "Do not use Wikpedia".

And based on my experiences, that is true at all colleges.  Even well-known 
VA ones.  Four-year college students are worse than those at community 
colleges, based on my teaching experiences the past couple of years.

Sigh.

A friend who is an expert on the Titanic keeps having to correct the 
incorrect information that people keep putting in Wikipedia.

I agree with the earlier message that Wikipedia's main use is looking up 
information about people from pop culture (and knowning that even that 
information may be wrong...)

Terilee





Professor Terilee Edwards-Hewitt
Montgomery College, Rockville Campus



-----Original Message-----
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:21:01 -0400
From:    "Stephan A. Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "Americans" and Wikipedia

I am active on three lists in three quite different disciplines, and
every person, on every list thinks Wikipedia is garbage, based on
their survey of it, in the areas where they have competence. That has
certainly been my experience.  Like Henry I have corrected mistakes,
only to go back and find them retro-"corrected" into error.  Often on
the simplest, and most solid of facts.  Henry's comments were polite.

-- Stephan