Midterm Assignment

I really don’t like to agree with college professors as a rule, but it would be impossible to regard Wikipedia as a scholarly source. However, to ban it as a reference like Middlebury College is so close-minded and to me college is about being open-minded to possibilities not elitist about from where information emanated. To cite it as a source and not check the source would be like hearing something from Keith Olbermann and accepting it as truth. Some of it is probably true, but more research is required. The point, it can’t be cited as a source, but it is a great starting point. It should be used as a learning tool and not a research source…which is more than I can say about Olbermann. As our class presentations made clear, some web links will no longer exist and this alone makes it not entirely reliable as a source. Also, because the content on Wikipedia is largely acquired from anonymous posts it can contain a great deal of bias.

It seems to me, technology such as Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter should be embraced by educators and the educational system to invite open, informal and liberal communication between teachers and students. Instead of technology being classified as …good-bad or downside-upside… it should be seen as a tool in the building of a life-long educational process. Just because Wikipedia is more informal than a scholarly journal does not mean it has no merit in the classroom. Sometimes colleges get so caught up in their scholarly pursuits that they seem to lose touch with what is going on in the “real world.” In the context of American culture, maybe thinking more about how they are cavalierly raising tuition prices and less about Wikipedia as a way to maintain credibility would be time better spent.

And, on the subject of credibility, what was apparent during the research of the Scientology page was that scholarly research can be questioned as well. Sociology Professor Anson Shupe from Indiana StateUniversity-Purdue University called Professor Stephen Kent from the University of Alberta a “bozo” in an email he sent to me and questioned Kent’ credibility both as a researcher and an expert on Scientology. Kent is described on the Wikipedia page as an expert and has been cited in many peer-reviewed scholarly journals but Shupe was clearly questioning his methods of research. When I looked further into Kent’s and Shupe’s backgrounds, it seems both have questionable methodologies in their research of Scientology. It appeared that Kent only spoke to ex-Scientologists in his research and Shupe, in his research of the controversy between Scientology and the Cult Awareness Network, read only the depositions that the prosecuting lawyer and Scientologist Kendrick Moxon had selected for him. It appears that students who do due diligence in their research may find the need to not only check the facts on Wikipedia pages, but those in peer-reviewed journals by college professors as well…