i think you’re defending a mute point as you’re now arguing what constitutes ENOUGH research. that’s very different than source *adequacy*.

i’m “lazy” for pasting a search query here? i included the “define: research” search so you could see that i’m not cherry-picking definitions. (which you _are_).

honestly, i feel i’m listening better than you are since you haven’t addressed my arguments *at all*.

again, you illustrated my point and i’m not sure you meant to: “graded 100s of papers [so i know and am more qualified.” {the buzzer sounds at the evidence of self-justification} i’ve graded papers. wtf does that really have to do with anything? i can tell you that the problem in the american university system is not adequacy of research sources but the ability to communicate thought. from what i’ve read of student papers, most people are near-illiterate. and those people are getting “C’s” from professors and earning a college degree. now seriously, what’s worse: (a) student A who uses wikipedia but clearly communicates his/her thoughts or (b) student B who can’t read or write to save his/her life but “didn’t use wikipedia when researching.” the state of the union clearly answers that question for us.

also an important question arises, “why are professors passing students in subjects said students have near-to-nil comprehension of?” simple answer! to get tenure. again, we see self-justification at its finest, as well as the fact that professors aren’t immune to a bit of natural human politico in securing a position.

i think you have some serious reflecting to do because it’s evident you haven’t penetrated much beyond the surface of things.

good luck!

Since you can’t be bothered to cut and paste the definition of research, I’ll do it for you: “Scholarly or scientific investigation or inquiry.” What exactly is scholarly about simply turning any encyclopedia? (Or Google?)

You can contend whatever you like is at work here, but the heart of the matter, as I have consistently (and concisely) stated, relying on any encyclopedia is not sufficient for a collegiate level paper. It’s not scholarly investigation. As someone who graded hundreds of collegiate papers, I can tell you that someone who based their paper solely on a Wikipedia article hasn’t done research.

You’re simply not listening. I’m not interested in pursuing this subject.

i see self-justification everywhere i look, so i really wouldn’t put it past professors to do the same thing. i’d be seriously surprised to find anyone who doesn’t justify everything they think/feel/believe w/ something reflective of their personal experiences. “i deserve to make 100k…i deserve to make 10 million this year because i run a big company…i deserve to have my…” we’re an entitlement society.

i’m not sure where you get the idea i don’t have any basis for what i’m saying…you have no real idea who i am or where i came from. you have the link in my name and that’s it.

btw, how can the peer review pale in comparison? it’s immediately accessible. listed authors present. checks and balances in place. none of that is in a journal article.

using the “wikipedia calls itself argument” holds zero water: google calls itself a search engine…i guess you haven’t used google docs, gmail, maps.google.com, finance.google.com…yeah, all those services are restricted to finding websites. (not)

i think you don’t know what research means:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGF B_enUS217US259&q=define%3A+research

i imagine you don’t know much about the positivist movement (in philosophy). maybe you do. i would look at that up and compare the sentiment of abandoning discussion of metaphysical and morality as unscientific with the banning of wikipedia in the classroom.

i’m sorry you don’t see the elitism in this situation. elitism is a very natural habit to fall into. we all like to think we’re special–and maybe every once in a while we are actually special; most of the time we’re not special though. it’s during that “most of the time” that we begin to justify ourselves.

that being said, you haven’t refuted nor addressed the fact that there’s no real differentiation between a bibliography on wikipedia and one at the end of a journal article. you also haven’t addressed what happens when a student gets his/her hands on a disproved article or paradigm. does it have more clout than the up-to-date wiki entry because it was printed on paper? a quick check to wikipedia would illustrate (with a citation!!) of when and why an argument was disproved.

just not seeing it. (and i *am* open to a real discussion.)

Looking something up in an encyclopedia—which is exactly what Wikipedia calls itself—doesn’t constitute sufficient research to pass a collegiate course. We’re not talking about grade school (which, as I said above, was the last time an encyclopedia was a sufficient source. Using a resource doesn’t equal research. Reading doesn’t equal research. Have we really been on the Internet so long that we can’t remember what research really is?

as for wikipedia, i think that’s a resource and tends toward being more right than wrong. typically the entries are put together by “experts” within a field, including citations and further reading material, including links. it’s also a fluid entry-point for information so as changes arise, the site is updated. that doesn’t happen with a journal…and a student could easily get that old information and cite it as correct!

SO, i have to disagree w/ the professors’ decisions (and your argument?) that wikipedia isn’t a valid source. i think there’s a dangerous duality at play:
on the one hand the professors want to teach students what “proper” resources are while at the same time perpetuating elitist perspectives on who holds the keys to education & thought. (i’m not convinced that professors necessarily have better answers than “non-experts”…they simply have more time to gather sources that support their arguments, making them *appear* to be more legitimate). blogger apophenia (http://www.zephoria.org/) has written extensively on this topic and is worth a read if you haven’t done so already.
just my two cents.

And, really, I don’t understand why you say Google isn’t a resource and then tell us what a good resource it can be.

In scholarly works, there are certainly other ways to find previous works. The professor in this article provided her students with a reading list. There are search engines that search only articles peer-reviewed journals. Google.com isn’t one of them.

Alan Johnson

You have to watch those kids from Brighton, they’ll get up to no good if you don’t watch ‘em.

“Plagiarism is an academic crime and it’s punishable by academic death!”

When I caught students recycling old papers (or their roommates’ old papers), I had them rewrite them. If I had told the professor, he might have had the students go before the academic standards board.

I think both Google and Wikipedia have their value, but not as a definitive source of wisdom. The analysis and synthesis skills are much more important than being able to find lots of irrelevant and disconnected snippets of information.

Good post!
Stephane

Best, Rich

Alan Johnson