On 11/04/11 8:45 AM, geni wrote:
On 4 November 2011 14:24, Tony
Sidaway<tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Harry Kroto.
'Kroto shared his views on what he calls the "GooYouWiki-Revolution"
and spoke highly of Wikipedia as a resource.
"In my field," said Kroto, "it's more reliable than the
textbooks."'
http://www.reflector-online.com/life/wikipedia-not-all-bad-even-sexy-1.2665… In
fairness his field is chemistry which has issues with its
textbooks. Most of the best chemists are more interested in publishing
in journals rather than text books and all but the most fundamental
areas (and Atkins Physical Chemistry has rather a lot of that area
locked down) move so fast that books are outdated within a year or so.
Throw in the academic publishing sector wishing to push out new
editions of their organic and inorganic chemistry books each year and
errors in proof reading are also an issue.
Writing a long textbook may not be financially rewarding for the
author. But I would also think that with undergraduate science there is
not much incentive to investigate alternative approaches. That
certainly keeps the textbook publishers happy.
If a student uses Wikipedia for an essay it's dishonest not to say so,
so the present state of things only drives users into the closet. The
real issue should not be about using Wikipedia as a source, but using it
as the only source for the key concepts of the essay.
Ray