Research: Popular Reality

Wait a minute… this isn’t the usual upbeat banter of ‘Grad Student Christine’ that you have all grown to love (or hate, I don’t judge)!? Well, that fact might be true, but if you’ve gotten this far, either by way of the UCF IF website or through tireless searching of blogspot’s public editorials, then you might as well see if this new guy has anything worthwhile to say, right?

First off, a little bit about me:
They call me Robert Slade, and I’m a second year undergrad at the University of Central Florida in sunny Orlando. I only added the ‘sunny’ part because, though it’s currently the middle of winter, I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt to all of my classes. Now here’s my dirty little secret: I’m actually a civil engineering major *gasp*. Ok, so now you’re wondering why you should take the time to read the doubtlessly typo-riddled blog of an engineering student. Well, I get the opportunity to blog here today because I have worked with the UCF philosophy department for the last year or so doing lots of random IF stuff. Does this make me a qualified social commentator with provoking insight into life’s little issues? Probably not, but I do have a few meaningful ideas on the subject of research that you might just find useful and (hopefully) a little interesting.

So here’s the plan; I’m going to write several posts on the common pitfalls of research and how to overcome them. If I ever say something that you would like me to expound on, or if you just get tired of my harping on the same old issues all the time, just shoot me an email and I’ll try my best to accommodate.

To start with, I have to ask one more question: Where do you get your news? Don’t panic, the purpose of this particular entry is not to convince you to become a daily subscriber to the New York Times or to start listening to NPR on your morning commute (that’s for a latter issue). I only ask because even if the only news you get comes from the evening satires on Comedy Central than you’re still familiar with the controversies surrounding Wikipedia.org. For those of you who are not familiar with the website, Wikipedia is a free public encyclopedia where all of the articles are created, edited, and updated by the general public. If this is new information for anyone, I must commend you on your success in finding this blog as it appears that this is your first time using the internet. Now, for anyone out there who is an avid follower of this blog, you might be thinking to yourself that this sounds remarkable similar to a topic that Christine covered a few months back. Well, you’d be correct; but seeing as this is my first time posting I thought I’d take an already hot-topic and give it my own spin... and see how it goes over. I hope you enjoy it!

So, Wikipedia has been in the news as of late largely due to its growing popularity. The site itself boasts over “9.25 million articles in 253 languages” (Wikipedia). Although popularity is not the only reason that Wikipedia has maintained the spotlight. Content has also played an important role. The very nature of the site, open to input form everyone, allows for a dynamic assortment of articles covering a veritable gamut of topics, from sports and politics to pop-culture and cult-fantasy. This variety, along with the site’s ease of access, due mainly to its free and open nature, has helped propel the site into common usage.

Ironically, the very qualities that spurred Wikipedia’s mainstream appeal are also its major source of criticism. Because anyone can edit an entry, the reliability and accuracy of the content is in question, particularly by academic institutions who value authoritative credibility and peer-reviewed scrutiny. For this reason, most higher education facilities (Colleges, Universities, and even High Schools) are restricting the use of Wikipedia as a credible source of academic information. However, the use of Wikipedia as a general source of knowledge has not decreased along with this regulation. On the contrary, Wikipedia has only become more widely used over time.

How can this be? How can an unregulated, discredited, non-academic website continue to gain popular use and appeal? The answer is really rather simple. Wikipedia articles, though not technically credible, are often factually accurate. The BBC News reported a study by the (academically respected) journal Nature which concluded that “Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica” (BBC News).

OK, great - colleges won’t accept a Wikipedia citation even though it appears to be a fairly accurate source of information. Is this the stubbornness of an archaic institution unwilling to embrace modern technology, or is there something else? Well, the truth is that Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, is a great place to start a search, but not a good place to end one. I think that James Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, put it best when he responded to a student upset over failing a paper because it cited Wikipedia; “For God's sake, you’re in college; don't cite the encyclopedia” (Wikipedia)!

At the top of this blog I promised solutions to some of the pitfalls of research, so here are a few pieces of advice for using Wikipedia in research:

• Don’t cite Wikipedia. Just like citing any other encyclopedia, it’s not acceptable for most scholarly purposes.
• Use Wikipedia as a place to get a broad overview of a subject before you begin researching, it is usually up-to-date and often fairly accurate.
• Wikipedia does a pretty good job of citing its own sources. If you have nowhere else to begin, you can use the links provided at the bottom of the articles to get started.
• Always double check the information. If you can’t find some fragment of information anywhere else but Wikipedia, it’s probably not reliable and not worth using anyway.
• Don’t forget about the real world. There is so much more information out there than just the internet. Try going to the library and looking at real books (bound paper with writing on it), you just might be surprised at what you find.

Congenially yours,
~R.S.