At the Guardian UK, Brian Whitaker defends the use of Wikipedia as a research source, after some readers complained about his use of Wikipedia for an article he published on the site. I think he's right about this. Wikipedia gets slammed by people (usually teachers) as not being suitable as a more traditional source. But the problem's not so much with Wikipedia; it's with how people use it. Is a Wikipedia article about gender studies as complex and well-researched as a peer-reviewed journal article? Maybe. Or maybe not. It depends on the context that the writing is being done in and for, the intended readers, the goals of the writing, and the content of the specific bit of research being used. Writers are supposed to learn how to evaluate the reliability and usability of their resources; banning Wikipedia use for students (or others) is itself a form of pedagogical laziness.

Yes, I know Wikipedia isn't perfect and there are pitfalls for the unwary. But so long as you use it carefully, I can't see the problem. Overall, it's an invaluable resource.

Yesterday, looking for a handy and straightforward explanation of "male hijab" for the uninitiated, I did a Google search and came across the Wikipedia article.

I read the article, and it seemed to provide what I was looking for, so I quoted a bit of it and provided a link to the page (which of course contained plenty of links to a variety of other sources for anyone who might want to pursue it in more detail).

If you read a lot of Wikipedia articles it becomes fairly easy to judge whether or not the authors know what they are talking about. The bit I quoted had obviously been written with some care and, more importantly, it tallied with what I had learned from off-line sources which are impossible to link to.

[via things magazine]