----- "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 11 August, 2008 00:26:47 AM GMT +00:00 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The dangers of not citing Wikipedia
The problem is that we have tens, even hundreds, of thousands of students who routinely consult Wikipedia when doing research, but don't cite it, and perhaps are not allowed to. There are a lot of folks who don't understand plagiarism, thinking it applies to copying material, but not to use of information.
The typical response is "Well, I look at the Wikipedia article, but don't use it. I use the sources it cites... Using those sources is using information from the article. They are part of it. To say nothing of orienting themselves regarding the subject by reading, and using the ideas from the Wikipedia article.
Fred
Maybe I am in a different academic field that doesn't emphasise the train of sources, but I have never referenced the articles that I used to get the sources I use for quotes or ideas in my articles... Nothing personal against authors who have really good reference lists, it is just that I reference ideas directly without the chain of evidence I guess.
Cheers,
Peter