I was really encouraged to read this blog post some weeks ago, calling for students to be permitted to use Wikipedia as a research source.

I am often faced with students, from GCSE to degree level, who come to me for support and sit aghast as I pull up a browser window and check Wikipedia for a good definition.  Their teachers and lecturers ban its use or mention and many of them are struggling to grasp concepts or find starting points for their research as a result.

I understand their argument:  Wikipedia IS an unreliable source, which is not policed by experts, with articles that can range from misleading to down right inaccurate.  It often features sections written in more colloquial English, rather than the hyper-formal language of published encyclopaedias, making it easier to copy and paste sections of text convincingly.  It is not trustworthy and promotes plagarism from students.

So why I do I support its use?

Well, I think the reason it can be misused and abused as a resource by students is because they are not taught proper research skills in the first place, and so cannot use sources responsibly and discerningly.  It is easy to ban Wikipedia and instruct students to search in books for their answers, but this is not the same as teaching them research skills.  If these tutors bothered to teach research skills properly, then there is no reason why students should be restricted by an approved list of sources – in fact, restricting them in such a way can prove completely counterproductive.

So, guidelines for teaching research skills:

1. Don’t ban any source
2. Don’t ban any source
3. Don’t ban any source

Instead, teach students to understand the limitations and biases of certain sources, and how to use them constructively within context.  Because Wikipedia is not written by an accepted team of experts (although many contributors ARE experts in their field) it is not necessarily a reliable source.  However, it does have benefits in that it draws a lot of information into one place and provides both internal and external links to relevant sources.  It is often, therefore, a good place to start to get a handle on a topic, and to find links to other online sources.  A student who understands the issue of reliability will approach Wikipedia, take information from it, then search for corroborating evidence before deciding whether to accept the information in the Wikipedia article.  In reality, this is what students should do with ALL sources – including traditional printed materials, such as their own textbooks.  Research is not simply collecting information, but analysing it to decide what is likely to be true and what is not.  Unfortunately, many students come away from the research process without grasping this simple concept, because the rhetoric of their tutors convinces them that certain sources are automatically trustworthy, when others should be avoided like the plague, despite any apparent usefulness.

I think responsible tutors and teachers will eventually come round to this, but many will remain closed-minded or bound by institutional misunderstandings about what Wikipedia is: simply a resource like any other – to be challenged and used responsibly in context.  My hope is that by teaching students how to use Wikipedia and other online resources responsibly, I can help them to develop a mature attitude towards research in general, with all the questioning and investigative joy that goes with it!