Encyclopaedias - Part One: Wikipedia

"What's wrong with Wikipedia?"

It's a question I've heard a few times from various students over the years. It usually comes straight after I tell them they can't use Wikipedia for their research assignment.

There are a number of reasons for this. On one hand, the same problems exists for Wikipedia that you would find with any other encyclopaedia (see Part Two for more information).

On the other hand, Wikipedia has a few issues that are uniquely its own - and which put it far, far off the list of any serious research strategy.

The best advice I can give you is to think of Wikipedia as your Uncle Dave, who seems to know everything.

Sure, if you wanted to know something about the Great Wall of China, you could probably ask Dave, and there's a good chance he'll know the right answer. You still wouldn't cite him in your essay.

The Great Wall of China is one of the few ancient structures visible from orbit, according to my uncle, Dave.

There's also a good chance Dave might not be completely sure about what he's telling you, but he says it in such a way that he sounds convincing so you believe him anyway. If you use this information without checking it against a more authoritative source, you could end up making a fool of yourself.

As far as every lecturer and teacher on the planet is concerned, Wikipedia is as much an authoritative source on a given subject as your Uncle Dave. If you try to use it as a source for an assignment, you may as well kiss a handful of marks goodbye.

Does that mean you should never look at Wikipedia?

Not necessarily. Like "real" encyclopaedias it can give you some decent background information and point out some web pages and "further reading" that you actually can use for your assignment. But whatever you find on Wikipedia, treat it as if it came from Uncle Dave. Use it to help you know what you're looking for in "real" sources, but never try to use it as a source itself.

Remember, when you are researching an assignment, you need to find material that is authoritative, relevant, accurate and current. Wikipedia can never tick all of those boxes, so it's best to give it a miss.

A Student's Guide to the Medical Literature

A Student's Guide to the Medical Literature is a site that gives a lot of good tips and pointers (as well as a tutorial or two) about researching literature (as in, 'scholarly literature', not 'Literature' as a subject).

It is specifically aimed at Medical Students and looks closely at Evidence-Based Medicine, but a lot of the practices and principles involved in Evidence-Based Practise are very useful across the disciplines, so you shouldn't think you won't learn something useful just because you're not studying Medicine..

You should have a bit of an explore. It's from the good folk at University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Programs.

Proof reading marks

Okay, so you got a paper back from your tutor or lecturer (hopefully after giving it to him/her well in advance of your due date so you can make improvements before handing it in), and it's covered with little marks for suggested corrections. What are these marks, and what do they mean?

Over many years of proofreading and editing, a system of proof-reading marks have come to be. These marks indicate, for example, whether a word is misspelt, a sentence should start a new paragraph or more information should be inserted at a particular point.

Now, most editors stick with the symbols fairly closely, but many teachers and markers develop their own little quirks, so you might find that some symbols vary slightly depending on who is scribbling on your paper. Generally speaking, though, the following pages will give you an idea about what they want you to change:

http://www.cheltenham.org/chs_english/cwp/view.asp?A=853&Q=433450
http://webster.commnet.edu/writing/symbols.htm
http://www.bucknell.edu/x4763.xml

And remember, when in doubt, you can always ask them.

Global Learning

Some colleagues and I were having a discussion in the library about the "how is it relevant to me?" question.

It seems that one of the big points to come out of the First Year Experience studies (which examines what students in their First Year feel about university, and what they need to make it to Second Year) is that students want to know exactly how a piece of information is relevant to them, and if that relevance isn't immediately obvious or declared, they elect to 'switch off' and ignore that information.

Now, this doesn't really surprise me all that much because I used to be a high school teacher, and I found this attitude was growing increasingly prevalent amongst my students (it's one of the reasons I left teaching). It was only a matter of time before the high school students who wouldn't pay attention unless you specifically answered the "how is it relevant to me?" question would become university/college students with the same approach to learning.

There's a culture within the current crop of teenagers/twenty-somethings that insists on the bare minimum. They want to burden themselves only with what is absolutely necessary. Anything that might be beyond that bare minimum is something regarded as a waste of time - and no one wants to waste time learning things that won't immediately help them, do they?

This is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous attitudes to learning you can cultivate.

Now, I'm assuming that, if you read this blog, it's because you want advice on how to get the most out of your studies and research. Can I give you the biggest and best piece of advice I could ever give any student?

Learn globally - Assume that everything will be relevant one day, and pay attention. It never hurts to know more than you have to know, but there is real danger in knowing less.

Why? It's called scaffolding. Basically, you learn new information by building on the information you already have. Educational theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky may disagree on many other aspects concerning how and why we learn, but they all agree that the knowledge you already have helps shape the way you gain new knowledge.

If you only pay attention to the bare minimum, you aren't giving yourself much of a platform to build on. It's very hard to build connections between things that aren't there. So, by choosing to ignore things that aren't immediately relevant, you are robbing yourself of a foundation that will become important later, when that information is relevant.

Think about it, why would a lecturer or teacher waste their time and yours by telling you things that won't improve your knowledge and understanding? Obviously, whatever is covered in class is going to become relevant at some point, so why would you ignore it?

Speaking of "understanding", there's another reason why you should learn more than the bare minimum and pay attention even if no one has specifically told you why it is relevant: Lateral thinking.

One of the most useful skills you can cultivate in life (let alone studies) is the ability to think laterally - to see the connections between things that aren't, at first, obviously connected. You will find that, most of the time, the connections are actually there, and it will help you better understand what you learn. This gives you a broad knowledge base, and helps you learn new things more effectively.

There's no point in knowing information if you don't understand it. It won't stay in your head, you won't be able to pull it out later and use it. Once you understand something, though, you're more likely to be able to remember it and use it.

Later, I'm going to talk about Bloom's Taxonomy - a way of looking at learning that will help you understand what your teachers and lecturers want from you. For now, I'm just going to tell you that there are different levels of learning, and 'knowledge' is right on the bottom.

To climb up the levels, you need to start connecting the individual things you know to everything else you know and the world around you.

That's what learning globally is all about - learning what you can about everything so that you can build a better understanding of the world and how what you're studying fits into it. It makes you a better student (and a more interesting person to talk to - how's that for immediate relevance?).

So, next time you're in a lecture or class and you're about to ask "how is this relevant to me?" before choosing to switch off, remember that everything is relevant. Think beyond the next assignment or exam paper and look at the big picture. You won't regret it.

Further Reading

On Vygotsky's theories:
http://www.esu.edu/sps/Dean/article7.htm
http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Vygotsky.htm
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/sdtheory/index.htm

On Piaget's theories:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~dnb208/Piaget.html
http://archivespiaget.ch/en/jean-piaget/life/index.html
http://www.piaget.org/

On both:
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/resources/tep/eportfolio/07p075folder/Piaget_Vygotsky.htm
http://www.uni.edu/freeburg/Publications/Vygotsky%20Piaget%20and%20Edu.pdf