Re: a little something for all you wikipedia-lovers

On Sun, 27 Jan 2007, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

On Jan 27, 6:30 pm, Joachim Pense <s...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Am 27 Jan 2007 15:10:42 -0800 schrieb Peter T. Daniels:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki

Quoting an encyclopedia as an academic source looks like a strange
idea, wiki or printed. Their purpose is to provide introductive
information to the uninformed, not to serve as a quotable resource for
research.

Maybe the humanities have a different idea on this?

For those who haven't looked at the article, it describes several
institutions that have banned college students from citing wikipedia
in papers. (Not from consulting it, because "sometimes it offers good
bibliographies.")

I think, when Joachim wrote "[Q]uoting an encyclopedia as an academic
source looks like a strange idea, wiki or printed", his point was that
Wiki has no - positive or negative - difference from printed encyclopedias
in *this* respect. If you replace "Wikipedia" by "Encyclopedia Britannica"
or "Der Große Brockhaus", everything remains correct. These works are not
intended as quotable resources, and should not be blamed for failing to be
such what they were not made for.

--
Helmut Richter
.

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