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.
]
...