Wikipedia wisdom

Professors, students struggle to define best usage of the Internet's ever-expanding collection of knowledge

January 22, 2007 —

When her communication professor told her she would not accept Wikipedia as a source in a research paper, Danielle Schoeny was a bit surprised. The Bay City native had used the popular source for a number of other papers in the past and had never had a problem until then.

It seems, though, that Schoeny is not alone in her confusion, as students at both the high school and college levels have been swept up in the mania that has accompanied the popular and easily-accessible site. Internet searches on almost any topic seem to lead to Wikipedia, helping students inevitably find their way to what is often interpreted as the end-all source for information.

That Wikipedia is an end-all source is, of course, inaccurate. By its own admission, the Web site has its shortcomings, often leaving professors in the precarious position of having to explain the concept of Wikipedia to students and why it is often considered controversial.

Francis C. Dane, the Finkbeiner Endowed Chair in Ethics at SVSU, says he allows students to use Wikipedia in his classes but, like any other source, will verify that the information taken from it is accurate. Dane also knows that many professors are not as accepting of Wikipedia as he is, but that he understands the reasons why. Still, he believes the question of Wikipedia's validity is a complex one that requires more than a simple yes or no answer.

"I know the biggest issue is whether or not it's a valid source," Dane says, "and I think, unfortunately, the answer is much more complicated than most people want it to be."

Wikipedia history

According to its Web site, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia which currently contains over six million articles in 250 different languages, making it the largest such reference in the world. However, the central difference between it and more traditional sources is what is at the heart of this very controversy.

While encyclopedias and journals are generally authored by scholars and peer reviewed before publication, Wikipedia articles can be written and edited by anyone at anytime, bringing about a debate over the risk of giving those outside academia the power to create and contribute to articles on scholarly subjects. Furthering this, users can add, alter, or remove information without registering a user account, giving those who visit the site free and anonymous reign over the available information.

Contributing to the debate is the speed in which Wikipedia has grown. While many scholarly and academic sources have decades - if not centuries - of history, Wikipedia's popularity has surpassed all of them in a matter of just six years.

Launched Jan. 15, 2001, it is already the ninth most popular Web site in the United States, according to Alexa Internet, a company that monitors Web traffic.

The site also shows no signs of slowing down. On Nov. 26, Wikipedia reported having exactly 1,503,366 articles accessible through the English version of its site. On Jan. 20 that number was 1,592,963 - an increase of almost 90,000 articles in just under two months.

It is not the number of articles available on Wikipedia that is up for debate, though. The argument amongst scholars is that the information available on Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate and that the articles themselves are particularly susceptible to Internet vandalism.

Wikipedia disadvantages

Perhaps the most infamous case of Wikipedia vandalism involved journalist John Seigenthaler, Sr. In May 2005, contributor Brian Chase anonymously altered the content in Seigenthaler's Wikipedia entry to suggest the journalist played a role in the assassinations of both John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

Though the information was deemed a prank, it remained on the site for several months before one of Seigenthaler's colleagues discovered it.

SVSU Professor of History Thomas J. Renna has also seen examples of vandalism on the site.

After the November elections, Renna decided to use Wikipedia to answer questions on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's Italian descent.

While the article was able to confirm Pelosi's heritage, it also contained a blasphemous piece of information that suggested Italians drink children's blood.

Renna said the Pelosi article was corrected a short while later, but that the example indicates just how vulnerable Wikipedia is to Internet trolls.

In Wikipedia's defense, Renna also says the majority of mistakes - particularly those of that magnitude - will be caught in minutes, if not seconds.

Evaluating Wikipedia

Aside from intentional mistakes, experts say Wikipedia also has its share of inadvertent ones. Dane and Renna both say they have witnessed such factual errors. Still, they point out that any article - be it scholarly or otherwise - is vulnerable to mistakes and that, ultimately, it is up to the person reading the article to evaluate and examine it critically.

"You have to know what [Wikipedia] is and then use it properly," Renna says.

Dane agrees, pointing out that, while the concept itself allows for peer review to catch mistakes, it is a process that does not always find success.

"The idea that everybody would support it by creating better and better entries is a great idea," Dane says. "But in practice it doesn't always work."

An article that appeared in the scientific journal Nature, however, suggests otherwise.

In the fall of 2005, the news team at Nature conducted a study comparing articles from Wikipedia to those appearing in the print version of Encyclopdia Britannica.

The results of the study showed that the average Wikipedia article contained four inaccuracies while the average Britannica entry contained three, leading Nature to claim that "the difference in accuracy was not particularly great."

Britannica vehemently refuted the findings, calling the research "invalid" and insisting "the study was so poorly carried out and its finding so error-laden that it was completely without merit."

In its response, Britannica challenges many of the errors found in the study and suggests Nature grossly exaggerated the inaccuracies, slanting its numbers and ignoring the significance of what amounts to a third more errors in Wikipedia's entries.

The response also indicated the study disregarded other important properties of encyclopedias such as organization, the quality of the writing, and the readability of articles.

Renna agrees with Britannica on the importance of the quality of writing in encyclopedias, saying the writing in Wikipedia is amateurish and overly simplistic.

"From a prose point of view, there is no question Wikipedia limps badly," he says. "This is opposed to an expert who writes for Britannica."

Aside from having amateurs writing articles, Renna says one of the contributing factors to the poor writing is the fact that articles can be edited thousands of times over. He says it is difficult to find a well-written article since they have been edited many times over.

"What good is the article if it's being changed every five seconds?" Renna says. "I think that's an honest criticism of Wikipedia."

Vandalism and factual errors aside, Wikipedia has also drawn questions over the level of objectivity in some of its articles.

Though Wikipedia has a policy asking for articles to be written in a neutral point of view, Renna says the site has no way to enforce it, and that many opinions and biases seep into articles, particularly in those on such hot-button issues as religion and politics.

"The big problem now isn't just the misinformation, it's the insertion of opinions," Renna says. "That's actually become more of a problem."

Renna says contributors often insert bias into articles on such topics as Islam or George W. Bush which are then edited and filled with bias again. This practice leads to what is called "edit wars" which can subsequently lead to users being blocked.

The benefits of Wikipedia

Though both identify problems with Wikipedia, Dane and Renna also admit it has its advantages, particularly in the diffusion of information.

While the scholarly sources that are available at the library are often very expensive, Wikipedia is free to anyone with an Internet connection.

And since the information located on the site can be added or altered by anyone, it is not copyrighted and thus can be distributed without violation.

Because of this "copyleft" nature, Renna says he will often print out Wikipedia articles on subjects he plans to discuss in class and provide the copies to his students in advance so they have some background knowledge of the lecture topic.

Renna also believes the articles are very good in such subjects as technology and science, further lending support to his belief that Wikipedia struggles with articles that require contextual interpretation.

"In terms of factual information for an introductory article, Wikipedia is very strong," he says, "as long as you don't get into things that require interpretation."

The growing popularity and controversy of the site has also led to some positive changes. Renna says experts are contributing to the articles more than ever, often serving as watchdogs on entries that fit their areas of expertise.

"The advantages outweigh the disadvantages," he says. "It is a quick and immediate way to get some facts up front that you can use as a place then to branch out and go onto something else. In fairness, that is what an encyclopedia is supposed to do."

Holding students accountable

Many scholars believe the answer to the Wikipedia question could be in educating students on different sources.

Dane agrees, saying that it is necessary for university professors and K-12 teachers to do a better job educating their students on the differences between those sources that are scholarly and those deemed unacceptable.

"If we aren't willing to explain the difference and hold people accountable to understanding that explanation, then we have no reason to complain when they fail to produce something that is consistent with the difference between a good and bad source," he says.

However, Dane also suggests that students need to take greater responsibility when it comes to research and ensuring they are looking at credible information.

"The more accessible the information and the easier it is to produce information, the greater the responsibility that falls to the prospective user of that information," he says.

Heather LaBeau agrees. The senior applied math and statistics major uses Wikipedia on occasion but only to gather background information. She says the site is great to use to figure out where to go next for research and that Wikipedia can be very helpful if used properly.

"I think it is great but not necessarily for the information on there," she says. "I use it as a gateway to other sources."

Dane, meanwhile, believes mindsets similar to those of LaBeau's are the way to best tackle Wikipedia and that, like any source, no assumptions should be made about the validity of the information.

"I don't think that it's appropriate for someone to say there's nothing worth using in Wikipedia, and I think it's equally inappropriate to say Wikipedia is fine and use it at will," Dane says. "But that applies to any source."