On Thursday 10 March 2005 00:20, Sj wrote:
James Governor writes poetically about Wikipedia's magic, referencing the ongoing Wikipedia debate (don't tell me you had forgotten the continuing "Wikipedia Debate" echoing through the halls of academia) :
Semi-related thread:
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/usage-and-citation
... [ Even in high school, when confronted with a rule prohibiting the citation of a reference work I felt as if I was being encouraged towards plagiarism, or at least unfairness. If a reference work points me to a more authoritative source, should I at least not acknowledge this bit of help? Particularly, if I'm more likely to be influenced by the summary provided by the reference? Additionally why would any book among the thousands published a year be any more authoritative than a general reference work on the sole basis of its form? I could compile a multipage bibliography of books denying the Holocaust, but find few -- if any -- general-purpose reference works that did the same. The generality of the reference work insulates it from partisan pressures because it must appeal to a wide audience over many topics. ] ...