Thing 15: Evaluating Information

I have never understood the negative press surrounding Wikipedia as an information source, or the sniffy attitude of educational establishments towards it.  I do a lot of work of academic nature and use Wikipedia incessantly.  As Rebecca O'Neill mentions, it is best used as an encyclopedia - not for citing in a publication but as a useful first port of call when you want to get your head round a new topic or to refresh your memory of an old one.  Wikipedia's greatest strengths are the bibliography and external links at the end of each article which open the doors to exploring the subject in greater detail.  For example, if you are interested in Charles Dickens, the relevant Wikipedia page gives you a whopping list of 90 books and articles cited or recommended for further reading, and 22 links to works by Charles Dickens and to museums, organizations and portals dedicated to him.  Even if you don't trust the article itself, what better place to start your own exploration of Dickens than this?

While Wikipedia may not appeal to the learned academics, it is an ideal resource for young scholars to get started on.  Wikipedia also serves as ideal teaching material.  Rebecca O'Neill mentions how students can be asked to evaluate the contents and references of individual articles.  Another way would be to get them to compare a well researched and well cited Wikipedia article with a poorly compiled one and note the difference.  I can't think of a better way to enhance critical thinking.

One of the fears that people have is that because of the open nature of Wikipedia, individuals can edit and manipulate text at will and by doing so mislead readers.  Well, my colleagues and I learnt the hard way that that's not the way it works, when we wanted to add our Long Way to Tipperary online exhibition as a reference source to one or two articles.  Within hours of inserting the information, it was edited out.  We tried it several times and every time we were caught out and removed.  I can't remember what the final outcome was but we actually had to make direct contact with Wikipedia to plead our case.  This experience further strengthened my respect for the reliability of Wikipedia as an information source.

I have also learnt that information published in prominent academic sources is no guarantee of its accuracy.  I recently had occasion to consult an academic paper in a peer reviewed journal and was shocked by the quantity of errors it contained.  Sources were quoted out of context, or referenced to articles from which they clearly did not come, and bibliographical entries were riddled with errors, from misspelled titles to wrong volume or issue numbers.  It really drives home the need for critical thinking and for keeping your eyes wide open when searching for factual information, particularly in the  jungle of "alternative facts" in which we currently exist.

I was keen to try out the Wikipedia editing exercise but to my disappointment couldn't find anything that I felt competent enough to fix, or anything that could be fixed quickly.  In spite of that, I really enjoyed this Thing.  Critical evaluation is a topic close to my heart and I really appreciated the opportunity to dwell in it in greater detail.

A Point of View Bias

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