AGAINST THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT (UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS SHOULD BE PREVENTED FROM CITING WIKIPEDIA)

Against the following statement (Undergraduate students should be prevented from citing Wikipedia)



Why students should be banned from Citing Wikipedia

Literature Review

In the contemporary world, development in the communication technologies acquiesced to the most innovative forms of information tools. However, some of the websites are not considered to be providing information, but data only. The data becomes information only when it is coming from some authentic source or is verified. Hence, the validity of the information depends upon the authenticity of data. The websites use technologies to distribute centralized information (Lih, 2003). However, by embedding Web 2.0 technologies that make the consumer of the knowledge generators at the same time. This type of collective information, without any input or control from the centralized authority gives birth to the discussion on the reliability and validity of the information or knowledge generated. Due to this, the online Wikipedia encyclopedia is the centre of this discussion now days (Merriam, 1998).

Wikipedia the free encyclopedia offers millions of articles generated by the millions of users all over the world. Wikipedia provides a very informal way of sharing information and means of accessing it. In this online platform of free encyclopedia, every kind of barrier that comes in the way of sharing and accessing knowledge is being removed (Fallis, 2008). In this way, accumulated status acts as a main source of authority. This openness at one point is appealing to many of its contributors, however, it has become troublesome and reason of discomfort for many of the research scholars (Luyt, & Tan, 2010). In conferences and different international educational plat forms, different scholars showed their concerns and fears about citing Wikipedia (Shaw, 2008). Many of the scholars have discussed the fact that students do use Wikipedia as a resource in their term papers and other class work. This concern is arising day by day and scholars are taking strict actions against students who use Wikipedia as a resource. This is due to the fact that Wikipedia allow anyone to edit the page on the website. This policy of low barrier has flourished the Wikipedia; however, has lowered down its reliability of information, and has put its validity at stake with this kind of freedom (Matei, & Dobrescu, 2011).

Usually, the article in Wikipedia area result of collaboration of many authors, and can be edited by many other users (Messner & South, 2011).. This arises a concern in scholars about it validity. On the other hand, it is quite difficult of them to evaluate the validity of the information provided in the article. One of the major concerns is the lack of performance in the articles of Wikipedia. The scholars argues that if a student gives resource of Wikipedia articles, since the contributors change is frequently and many anonymous people can edit it, there is no certainty that the information being referred in the paper is still there overtime (Lih, ...