Posted: 02/28/07

Check Your Sources
Middlebury College declares Wikipedia to be an unacceptable source

Michael Connors|staff writer
mconnors2@smcvt.edu

The free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, was recently declared to be an unreliable source by the history department of Middlebury College because the information on this Web site is often inaccurate.

The Middlebury story

A volume of Britannica encyclopedias stacked side by side in St. Michael's Durick Library. (Photo, Michael Connors)

Neil Waters, a Japanese history professor at Middlebury College, says this is not a college-wide policy. Students have handed in papers that have drastic errors and many of these list Wikipedia as a source of information. Waters says he does not have a big problem with the Wikipedia Web site itself, it is a “particularly good place to start looking for things.”

He says students are responsible for the information they provide, but it is important that they verify facts before submitting an assignment. The information on Wikipedia is good for getting a basic understanding of a topic, however, Waters says it is important for students to expand their resources.

He says that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source because there is a conflict of information and opinion on the site. The information that people upload onto Wikipedia can be influenced by their backgrounds or their beliefs resulting in inaccurate or biased information. He says it blurs reality and opinion.

The citing of Wikipedia was especially a problem among first-years at Middlebury, Waters says. Misinformation was showing up not just in papers but also on tests and the college does not want their students to be accepting misinformation as fact. Waters, though, says he does not understand what all the fuss is about because colleges do not allow you to cite an encyclopedia at all.

People are using Wikipedia in ways that no one was expecting but people are abusing the power of uploading information, Waters says. After a unanimous vote in January, the members of the Middlebury history department banned the use of Wikipedia as a primary source because of the unreliable information. The college is aware of this information, which is what led to the department’s decision.

According to Waters, Wikipedia agrees with Middlebury’s decision. He says that they know the information can be inaccurate and the site has no problem with the decision of the Middlebury history department.

St. Michael’s ahead of the game

George Dameron, a history professor at St. Michael’s, says the college already has a policy that eliminates Wikipedia as a citable source. He says that he would have called a press conference to announce the school’s decision had he known that it would obtain the national attention that Middlebury received.
The Web site is a good source to start with, but in terms of citing sources, he says “the information is unacceptable.” Dameron says he is disappointed to see students use Wikipedia, because it is not an in-depth resource.

According to his past experiences, in a seminar class of about 15 students, about three will cite Wikipedia as a source, Dameron says, and normally this shows up in rough drafts so there is time for students to fix the paper.

“We would assume that it would be more likely to see Wikipedia show up on freshman and sophomore papers,” Dameron says.

First-years and sophomores often use the site as the stepping stone because they have not developed the research methods that most juniors and seniors exhibit, Dameron says. He says a critically minded person has the ability to see what info is wrong but a falsehood can often be overlooked by those who don’t recognize it as being so.

“As far as my experience goes, I’ve never used Wikipedia as a legitimate source on any of my papers and I don’t know many students, at least that I’ve had in class, who have used it as a serious source,” Paul Blomerth, a St. Michael’s history student wrote in an e-mail. Blomerth wrote he’s used Wikipedia to look up random facts but that it’s not a Web site he takes seriously enough to consider a worthy source for a paper. “That’s what books are for,” he says.

What Wikipedia offers

Bryan Shannon browses through the Wikipedia Web site while in his dorm. (Photo, Michael Connors)

Waters says that other college history departments may be noticing the same type of phenomenon with their own students. He says he feels that some of the information he has found on Wikipedia is frightening, due to incorrect facts. However, Dameron says he feels the information is so inaccurate that it isn’t even “a reliable source for writing a paper on Wikipedia [itself].”