Adding Reply Archived Topic: It will not be bumped to the top of the forum. Topic referencing in essays Membername   Not a member? Sign Up Free (takes 20 seconds) Password   Forgotten your password? Post Font: Verdana Arial Black Georgia Comic Sans Impact   Size: Tiny Normal Big Huge   Color: Default Dark Red Red Orange Brown Green Olive Cyan Blue Dark Blue Indigo Black [ Check Spelling ] [ Post Preview ] [ LiveTags ] FAQ Keyword Search: Post Options Favorites Manager Notify me of new replies to this topic by email Notify me of new replies to this topic by private message Original Post honey bunny Posted at 12:34 am on May 1, 2008 so wikipedia has been drilled to me as innapropriate (understandable right?) to use as an academic resource. i was planning on asking my teacher this, but feel like i'm bugging him lately..haha... i was wondering if anyone thinks that it's acceptable to use the resources of wikipedia articles as references? cheers

Replies Periwinkle Posted at 11:56 am on May 4, 2008 Most places won't allow wiki, but everything on wiki has to be cited from somewhere else. Check the sources listed and one of them may be useable. britishguy Posted at 1:49 am on May 1, 2008 You can't use Wikipedia itself as a resource for essays, no. As others have said it is too unreliable for that purpose. However you can always check out the sources cited by authors in the article for yourself if they are available and use THOSE to provide fodder for your essay. Generally speaking the internet is still a very difficult place to find material for serious essay writing. Many websites completely fail to report their sources - even the BBC for instance rarely cite their sources for an article - or else report them in an ambiguous or unhelpful manner. Whenever you DO use internet material as the basis for an argument you MUST be critical and you must cite the full url from which you obtained it in your references section as you would any other source. Try to stick to material from academic institutions such as Universities, or the sites that they might reference. One useful technique I developed for finding more reliable info was to search for course websites that might be relevant to my topic . SO if you are doing an essay about global warming you might want to look for university course websites for courses such as environmental science or social impacts of ecology/biology. Then you can see what resources the tutors on that course are recommending ot their students and you can piggyback off those yourself. Bagheera Posted at 12:48 am on May 1, 2008 I've used the references from wikipedia before. Just be careful and check completely the article, as sometimes it doesn't say what you think it does. swirnoff Posted at 12:43 am on May 1, 2008 technical efficiency is efficiency that does not consider costs of inputs. but the least-cost technically efficient process is the economically efficient process AntiValentine Posted at 12:38 am on May 1, 2008 yeah, use the sources they used. because they're usually good. and then they won't know you used wikipedia because you'll have a diff website katyduck Posted at 12:38 am on May 1, 2008 Nobody on my degree course may use Wiki. It's not a scientific review, and instead is open for anyone to write whatever they want on it. So it's unacceptable. Although one can use wiki to look something up, then steal some of wiki's references and use them if they are handy. mike is teh sex Posted at 12:37 am on May 1, 2008 ABSOLUTLY NOT wikipedia isnt reliable for the reason that the facts are not 100% accurate you can go right now and post an article about how idiotic akai hanna no tenshi is and someone could change it totally sucks LoveAlwaysAndi Posted at 12:35 am on May 1, 2008 as long as the public cant edit it i dont see why it would be a problem id check with the teacher though PimpMyHoes Posted at 12:35 am on May 1, 2008 some professors care, some dont. i duno, but usually wiki cites its sources right at the bottom so your best bet would be to figure out where the info came from from there and cite that source instead All 9 previous replies displayed.