A text which I feel is very intriguing, is Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been a controversial subject in classrooms across the world for years, and will be so for years to come. In short, Wikipedia is like spark notes on steroids. It has anything and everything on almost every topic or famous person, and provides a concise summary on what you need to know. It’s great because it does the research for you, showing you only what you need to know without the extra stuff that isn’t necessarily what you are looking for. In a sense it is reading your mind, it knows what the reader wants to see and only shows you that. It is much more concise than a book, and therefore many students nowadays just read the Wikipedia entry on a book instead of reading the actual book itself, causing many problems for teachers. Students are missing out on the experience a book brings, and are instead taking a shortcut to just find out what they need to know to complete a project or paper. Because of this, many teachers are beginning to not let students cite Wikipedia on papers, a huge step towards forcing students to actually read the books they are assigned.
Many scholars look upon Wikipedia as a shallow shortcut that lets students and anyone cut corners in finding out information that they are too lazy to search for. I understand this point, and agree that Wikipedia can cause problems in the classroom, but I don’t believe the problem is this severe. I believe for factual information, Wikipedia is fine to use, but for project I understand why teachers are beginning to outlaw it. It takes away from the essence of what a research paper is all about. The research! I completely see where kids are coming from, why read something you don’t want to, when the facts and information you’re looking for is sitting right there in front of you on your computer in a shortened format. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that? As tempting as Wikipedia is, a research paper is about research and the steps students learn in using a library and finding the necessary tools they need to complete the project without help from the oh so useful internet. Wikipedia is great, don’t get me wrong, just not for school assignments.
With Wikipedia also comes the controversial point, is Wikipedia a valid form of writing? The answer is twofold. Yes, Wikipedia is a valid form of writing in that it has full sentences and paragraphs and gives a very good summary of a given topic. But Wikipedia is not the type of writing teachers should be referring to in school and is not a valid learning medium. It is great to use for your own personal reference and instead of it being your main source to look up something it should just be used as a helper, to look up a fact or find out information on your own time. Wikipedia is the future of the internet, just not the future of reference in a classroom setting.
Wiki Glog
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