Citation and Paraphrasing

>Thanks for your response Professor Mickler. I was not aware of the issues with Wikipedia as I had not>seen your announcement. I truly thought this was a reliable source… but I will take your comments to>heart and read the article link you sent as well. Is Webopedia in the same vein then?

Hey Steven. I think one has to use caution when approaching self-contributed and self-policed information sources as references. Wikipedia is, by definition, a ‘wiki’ – a community application with a loose framework of fact and journalistic standards reviewed by volunteers who’re not experts in their field. Therefore, when I look at information from something like Wikipedia (Webopedia may fall into this same idea), I must realize that the information may be erroneous, may have error in fact, may be inaccurate, or may be biased.

Further, Wikipedia is _not_ a source. It’s an application, but not a recognized authority on anything. When I want to learn something, I turn to a textbook, published by a reputable publishing house, who vouches for the authenticity of its author who is usually credentialled in some way as to present the information. These same standards can be applied to web-based or electronic publishing, whereas the author is a credentialled authority. Wikipedia has had published/documented problems in its editing, and, its authors are volunteers. Therefore, it’s irrelevant – neat to read, maybe handy, but not a credible authority.

Where I find the biggest problem is that students turn to Wikipedia for _everything_, or, they paraphrase Wikipedia as a source. The student uses Wikipedia as a crutch – instead of reading a legitimate authority presented as required reading in a course (say, our textbook), our student reaches for a handy cliffnote created by somebody on the web, THEN reitterates that content because they’re too darn lazy to compose something themselves. An academic challenge for students, absolutely, but one that begins with educators: Wikipedia and its content must be scrutenized by an instructor. There are times that I’ll allow a student’s use of Wikipedia because what they cited is immaterial to the larger discussion, or, is generic information that I know as fact. However, when I see the crutch, it’s my inclination to kick it out from underneith the student (grin).

>I had no intent to cause issue by paraphrasing or using the thoughts of Wikipedia in my assignments.

Absolutely. Do look at the problem of paraphrasing when it comes to citation.

>When it comes to paraphrasing, I try to write my assignments in the style I speak.>Sometimes exact quotes do not grammatically make sense to me, so I use my own style to change a>bit of wording, but remove it from the quotation since it is not borrowed thoughts, just my own>grammatical fixing.

Your perception is in error. This is a direct quote from Einstein:

“In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course, and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light — only those who have experienced it can understand it.”

Say I re-wrote this for “grammatical fixing” and presented it for credit in a classroom:

“It seems reasonable that anybody can find knowledge without too much trouble if they tried. However, only those who’ve exchaustively searched for knowledge can understand the rewards of that experience.”

This, Steven, is a rip-off of Einstein. I have deliberately paraphrased his idea and reworded it. It’s wrong, I should never do this, and if I did, I should cite my paraphrasing to indicate that I’m paraphrasing Einstein.

Imagine if somebody re-worded Orwell’s “War of the Worlds” to “Planetary Wars”. Same characters, same plot, different words. Somebody would get sued for breach of copyright (grin).

> My understanding is that to quote/citate something was to place between the quotation marks the exact>text that you are citing and to give credit.

Sure. This is one aspect of citation, and, this works so long as the content doesn’t _present_ the student’s argument. Sometimes, students will cite whole paragraphs from sources without even attempting to make a point of their own. This is also a problem of paraphrasing: the student allows their source to construct their argument and presents their sources _narrative_ as _their_ conclusions. “Error! Danger Danger Will Robinson, Danger!” A student can’t hand me direct quotes form four authors and call it their assignment – that’s crap! I should see the student develop their own conclusions then support those conclusions with evidence from an authority (1st or 3rd party), giving their conclusion credo.

>This is the first time someone has alerted me to this issue, thanks.

No drama – that’s what I’m here for, to teach, and this is one of my pet projects (grin).

>I will try to do a better job of grammatically fixing my thoughts in the future around quotes…

The problem is not grammar – it’s rules concerning citation. Our Cybrary has a great APA section, by the way.

>used as to not cause confusion like this again. I appreciate your candid responses, this will help me >tremendously in the future.

Thank you, sir. And happy to help.
R

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