Those of us who grew up in the internet age also grew up hearing warnings against the use of Wikipedia as a reference source. Most of us routinely ignored this advice from our high school teachers–choosing instead to use it surreptitiously, not citing our source or using it to find other sources of the same information.
As we entered college, we heard the same warnings. We still used Wiki–just not for formal purposes. Instead, we used it to look up stuff we read about in the newspaper or bands or expressions or whatever. Wiki is pretty much irresistible–despite how much teachers complain about it.
So guess who suggested the use of Wikipedia today?
I doubt you’ll guess. My graduate Research Methods professor suggested using Wikipedia as a source for a definition of energy drinks. Her sentence was something like “You’ll need to come up with a good definition of “energy drink”. It shouldn’t be hard to come up with–you could check the American Marketing Association or Wikipedia.”
I about fell out of my chair. Did she really just say Wikipedia? Yes, she did. Apparently, once you’ve reached a certain level in your academic career, Wikipedia becomes an acceptable source of information.
I can’t say I mind.
Disclaimer: Dr. Driskoll was suggesting that we use the Wikipedia definition in the survey we are developing to ask college students about their energy drink consumption. She was not suggesting that we use Wikipedia as a source for a definitive explanation of say, the Hygiene Hypothesis.