As I was watching the video Wikipedia Debate, I couldn't stop thinking about one ID test question from Dr. Smith's LBST course last semester. I think this real life example shows how Wikipedia is misused by students who are unwilling to take additional steps to get accurate information from more reliable sources. While I agree with the video that Wikipedia is a good place to start when researching, it should never be your only source of information.
Dr. Smith's LBST course looked at Slavery, Citizenship, and Manhood up to the Civil War. His tests were ID tests, where students are given a list of terms to choose to answer. On one such test, one of the terms was "Loyal Slave States." I read several answers to this ID. I was stunned by how many students said (roughly) the following: "There were eight loyal slave states. Four of them became loyal slave states after the battle of Fort Sumter."
After reading about ten incorrect answers (like above) to this ID, all making the exact same claim, I decided to check the internet to see where these students were getting this answer. 'Cause Dr. Smith certainly never said that!
I found myself at Wikipedia. The term "Loyal Slave States" has since been taken down (which, on a different note, shows how quickly this site can be changed and updated!). This is the entry that I found instead: Boarder States. Yet, if you read the first paragraph, you can still see where some of these students got their wrong answer. The original entry had faulty punctuation. And that's putting it lightly. This entry is more clear than the entry that lead these students to an incorrect answer.
My point with posting about this experience is to show how unreliable Wikipedia can be. It also illustrates how often undergraduate students go to Wikipedia and treat it as a credible source.
This is not to say that Wikipedia doesn't have value. It is a very valuable resource. As the "Wikipedia Debate" video points out, it's breadth of terms makes it a perfect starting point for nearly any research topic.
The lesson to take away from this is: check your sources and don't believe everything you read on the internet.
I couldn't agree more. Wikipedia is definitely hit or miss.
ReplyDeleteGreat detective work and an interesting post, but you were asked to take a look at some other history sites. What did you find? klc
ReplyDeleteWell, I looked at a few different Wikipedia pages that led students to bad answers, but a lot of them had been improved. I didn't feel I had anything new to add to the discussion until I realized that "Loyal Slave States" was gone. I thought this post about the bad grammar, even if the page was missing, said more about Wikipedia than any of the other pages that I saw.
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