presidentofthelipglossclub:
janokenmun:
its-funnytwittertweets:
the thing so many people don’t understand is that the reason wikipedia is generally not accepted as a source has nothing to do with accuracy. wikipedia is (generally) extremely accurate! the reason wikipedia isn’t allowed as a source for school is because it’s a summary of other sources. wikipedia has correct information, but it gets that information from OTHER places, which are either primary or secondary sources, which lends them credibility that wikipedia technically lacks.
so yes, wikipedia is a GREAT resource to learn new things! but if you want in depth, specific, and creditable sources, don’t use wikipedia! use wikipedia’s cited sources!!
a source is the answer to the question “says who?”
and wikipedia doesn’t say things, it says here are things other people said about this.
a source is primary (first hand) or secondary (second hand). So a primary source is “i experienced the thing” and a secondary source is “i interviewed the person who experienced the thing.” Wikipedia is a tertiary (3rd hand) source, meaning all they do is say “so and so interviewed the person who experienced the thing, and THEY said” and if you’re interested in very correct information you want to cut that game of telephone short and go look at that interview yourself. You don’t want to be this person
Because she is wrong.
SO. When you look up “steam engine” on wikipedia you will see this sentence: “One recorded rudimentary steam-powered engine was the aeolipile described by Hero of Alexandria, a Hellenistic mathematician and engineer in Roman Egypt during the first century AD.[8] ”
but remember wikipedia doesn’t say that, wikipedia says someone else said that. Who? That’s what that footnote [8] is for! When you go down to the footnotes, you’ll see that footnote 8 says: “ "turbine”. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 July 2007.“
according to wikipedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica said it in their "turbine” entry. And not the print version, the online version, as of July 2007 with a link. Well i clicked on that link, and the online Encyclopaedia Britannica no longer has that exact page or entry. The source is missing.
This is why it is important to check the sources. I want you to know this is the first footnote on the first entry i thought to check for this example. The very first source i checked! and the listed source is missing or wrong.
Maybe that information was proven incorrect and removed, maybe the online version and the print version were edited to be more consistent between them and this entry was changed, who knows.
So now, if you say “wikipedia says it” as your source, not only are you wrong because wikipedia doesn’t actually make its own claims as a primary or secondary source, you might also be wrong because the secondary source has retracted their assertion of fact.
Now, if you look at what the footnote [8] was providing a source for it was talking about the aeolipile, and simply searching “aeolipile” on Encyclopaedia Britanica does turn up an entry confirming the information, so the Encyclopaedia Britanica is still a source that says what wikipedia says it does.
Now we all usually accept recognized encyclopedias as sources, it’s like saying a word is “in the dictionary” but if you were trying to be VERY accurate, you want to cut the game of telephone even more.
So where the Encyclopaedia Britannica online says “aeolipile, steam turbine invented in the 1st century ad by Heron of Alexandria and described in his Pneumatica” you’d want to check their source the same way we just checked wikipedia’s source.
So in that case, you would find a translated copy of Pneumatica, which was written by Heron of Alexandria in 1589, and you would check what it said for yourself, and list that as your source. And you’d still have to put WHICH translation, by who, because at some point somebody might come along and say “we now know that So-and-so’s translation contained an error, translating [this thing] as "that thing” making this information inaccurate .
This is why sources are so important. Without proper sources, we’re all just saying what our best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from some guy, and the actual truth is going to steal his best friend’s car and skip gym class instead of proving anything.
