Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Research is not about the Answers!

This morning's Yahoo! News had an encouraging Associated Press story from Middlebury, Vermont. In concerns a policy statement by the history department at Middlebury College regarding the use of Wikipedia in writing research papers:

Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation, even though it may lead one to a citable source.

One of the professors put this in the best possible way:

History professor Neil Waters says Wikipedia is an ideal place to start research but an unacceptable way to end it.

In my last blog I wrote several articles on the "question of whether or not tools such as Wikipedia and Google are eroding our skills for being critical readers." It would appear that Professor Waters is concerned with the same question. I am glad to see that there is one liberal arts college that is still standing and recognizes that there is more to education than delivering answers!

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