Journal #4 Revised

I read an editorial from our text Practical Argument on page 344-345. The editorial is called "Wikipedia with Caution" and it was published in the Stanford Daily on March 8th, 2012. I found this article to be very interesting since we as a class are now getting into our research projects. With this we are trying to find information and sites that are credible for usage in our papers. The editorial discusses how The Department of History at Middlebury Collage forbade kids to cite wikipedia in their papers. A lot of people became upset about this ban and it gained national attention including an article in the New York Times. This editorial took the position where they thought it was okay to do this and was not an issue of censorship. However, they felt like most kids already knew not to cite Wikipedia in a paper. I mainly agree with this. I think that Wikipedia can be helpful for some quick research. But I also think that it is always important to double check the information from a credible site. I really do not see a reason for people to be upset about not being able to cite Wikipedia as a source in a paper. Also, in the editorial it talks about how Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia did not see Middleburry's action as a "negative thing." Wikipedia had now introduced a citation function where contributors can direct readers to other well-established sources. I did not know that and I think that it was very helpful and a very nice feature for Wikipedia to provide for people. I really liked this editorial and think English teachers should discuss Wikipedia with their students to help them better understand what kind of a role it can play in their papers.