Wikipedia:Wikipedia in research

For encyclopedic article, see Research about Wikipedia.

See also: Wikipedia:Academic studies of Wikipedia and Meta:Research:Index

Wikipedia has been the center of a much heated and critical debate in academia pertaining to the relevance, accuracy, and effectiveness of using information found online in academic research, especially in places where information is constantly being created, revised, and deleted by people of various backgrounds, ranging from experts to curious learners.

Introduction

An old saying goes, "It's too good to be true." (which has been around since 1952 when Charles Wayburn was describing the aspects of a true president) Something so incredible, so awkwardly perfect usually ends up not being what it is supposed to be. Getting three free months of HBO is never bad, but it is up to you to call the cable company and cancel it, or else you would get charged. When Wikipedia entered the world, people thought – and still do – that though a free encyclopedia was an incredible concept, the overall result seemed kind of fishy. Many wonder "what's the catch?." The catch is the stupidity of the user. Yes, anyone can edit a page on Wikipedia, and yes, people put all kinds of crazy stuff in various pages just to see if anyone notices, but users must utilize some common sense in reading Wikipedia pages. This lack of common sense – or an allusion of everything being handed to oneself with ease – is too often the case when using Wikipedia as a resource in academia, especially at the high school level. Students tend to simply take the information straight from the Wiki page without even considering that it may in fact be incorrect, or slightly altered. Instead of banishing Wikipedia from the classrooms, teachers should instead instruct students on how to properly and effectively use Wikipedia as a research tool. By using Wikipedia as a launch pad for research, writers will access the best possible information in the most efficient and organized manner, allowing for better research and thinking.

Web Researching Methods: From Google to Wikipedia

Not too many years ago, people looking for information typically researched one place: Google. Google, which was still relatively new at the time, was something like no one had ever seen before. Through it, users could have access to a plethora of information that they could not have had before. But there was a catch: people didn't know how to use the information they accessed. The problem people began running into was that one site would say one thing and another site, sometimes the very next search result, would say something completely different. Then, people started checking the sources – they would search a few times, looking at different sites, ultimately choosing the most frequent information as their source. What began as a casual search ultimately turned into a little bit of work – and after time, some people began to accept this practice and eventually be accustomed to it. Then, Wikipedia came along, creating a portal of information in a single location, quick to use and easy to access, and completely changed, in theory, how web researching was done. "The core object of […] Wikipedia as a collaborative online encyclopedia, then, are representations of knowledge" (Bruns 103). This concept of a central location featuring a plethora information pertaining to a specific topic was ingenious and something that was not seen before. Further, having multiple levels of information in a single space, in theory, could eliminate extensive searching on Google and other engines.

Wikipedia's Problem

But as Wikipedia clearly exemplifies the produsage principle of open participation, anyone and everyone can edit anything and everything in Wikipedia. This is presents a huge problem, one that Wikipedia has been long criticized for most of its life. In Wikipedia, all users have the same credentials, regardless of what their actual background knowledge is. For instance, a person who is in middle school could change an article on the Greenhouse Effect that was created by a tenured-USC environmental science professor, even though the professor is more knowledgeable than the student. When something like this happens, whatever changes the "unknowledgeable" makes is almost immediately deleted or reversed. But in the off-chance it isn't, there could be significant repercussions.

Take the article on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, for instance. Originally, the article looked something like this:[1]. After altering the introduction, the article now looks like this:[2]. Obviously, the Gorton's Fisherman was not neighbors with Ernest Hemingway, and Hemingway did not write The Old Man and the Sea in gratitude to Gorton. But for someone who has no prior knowledge of Hemingway, his works, or the Fisherman, this would be information they could use and cite in their research. This is the problem that Wikipedia has created academia. Part of the solution to this problem is the search for reliable references to research papers for any statement that is inserted in Wikipedia, which is actually what constitutes the bridge between Wikipedia and Academic Science (as you may notice, in the above example the reference to a reliable source is missing).

Academia's Problem

In classrooms all over these days, mostly at the high school level, Wikipedia is prohibited in research of all kinds, simply because teachers are afraid that students will use whatever information is posted on the Wikipedia pages. Their thinking is that if we can eliminate the problem, there will be no problem. Bruns writes: "Concerns by teachers and others about student use of Wikipedia, for example, clearly indicate that even among teachers themselves, understanding of prodused resources and their processes of development remains somewhat limited; such teachers are unlikely to provide their students with a strong and nuance appreciation of the benefits and shortcomings of this collaborative resource" (338).

Solution

As Bruns puts it, educators have a two-fold challenge. First, "[we] must provide students with the ability to use the outcomes of produsage. [...] A second challenge [...] is not only to teach the literacies required to engage with the outcomes of produsage, but also to develop the capacities to harness such literacies in order to participate actively in produsage itself" (338-9). Instead of banishing the tool that Wikipedia has become, we should spend time and explain how Wikipedia is resourceful and in what ways can it be used. The stress should be on continuing research beyond Wikipedia, utilizing the references and sources within an article as the places to go for information that can be taken and put into papers and projects. Another way to put it: when beginning any writing process, one goes through the brainstorming stage. Wikipedia serves as the brainstorming for today's research – it can give an array of ideas and topics for one to choose from. Another way for educators to teach proper Wikipedia usage is metaphorically: Wikipedia is the GPS of research. It can guide one to many perspectives of a topic, but it does not show them the way there. It is up the researcher to use the directions Wikipedia provides to arrive at the information.

Generally speaking, Wikipedia is constantly being checked by thousands of editors, and with its policies of sourcing all information an integral part of its success, has a multitude of accurate information with plenty of background to support it. And since there are procedures (and sometimes extremes) in place, the information found in Wikipedia is compiled in a way that makes search engines seem less effective, even though they should be used to verify information one wishes to use from Wikipedia in some cases.

Overall, using Wikipedia in academic research should not be taboo as it too often is in classrooms today. Rather, it should be encouraged as a resource to use for thinking and organizing only. By utilizing its content, researchers can perform more efficient, higher quality research, subsequently equating into better papers and projects. Further, Wikipedia's open participation not only encourages collaboration but it also sets ground for debate and discussion, leading students to achieve a higher level of thinking.