Why do teachers pull the "No Wikipedia!!!" card?

[awesomebread]

you don't have to tell them you used wikipedia

[Ad Bot]

[Pie Crust]

you don't have to tell them you used wikipedia

Say that your source is bullstuffschoolname.com.edu.u s

Teachers (Atleast here) think that good sources always end as .com.edu.ar or as in .org.edu.ar or as .gov.edu.ar. Obviously, you don't live in Argentina so change the .ar

[@Ravencroft]

I can't wait til you guys get to college and be completely stumped when trying to find proper sources for your 30 page papers. Have fun with your wikipedia generalities.

[XR-7]

Last semester, my British lit/history teacher always said, "Wikipedia is not God." Implying that it isn't flawless and she prefers that we didn't use it as a primary/only source.

None of my teachers now have any problem whatsoever with Wikipedia.

[Blockzillahead]

Wikipedia cites their sources, so use those instead of Wikipedia as your source.

[Nonnel]

I've decided that teachers just want to make it harder to find information.

[Placid]

I can't wait til you guys get to college and be completely stumped when trying to find proper sources for your 30 page papers. Have fun with your wikipedia generalities.

this.. the reason they do this is so that when you get out of school you'll know how to write a research paper correctly

and if you're gonna pull the "but i won't need to write research papers!" card then you should think about all the other stuff that you do in school that you might not do when you graduate and realize that it's all part of learning the skills, it doesn't matter whether or not you end up using them. they're useful to have.

wikipedia says it best themselves imo:

Using Wikipedia as a research tool
Main pages: Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia
As wiki documents, articles are never considered complete and may be continually edited and improved. Over time, this generally results in an upward trend of quality and a growing consensus over a neutral representation of information.[citation needed]

Users should be aware that not all articles are of encyclopedic quality from the start: they may contain false or debatable information. Indeed, many articles start their lives as displaying a single viewpoint; and, after a long process of discussion, debate, and argument, they gradually take on a neutral point of view reached through consensus. Others may, for a while, become caught up in a heavily unbalanced viewpoint which can take some time—months perhaps—to achieve better balanced coverage of their subject. In part, this is because editors often contribute content in which they have a particular interest and do not attempt to make each article that they edit comprehensive. However, eventually, additional editors expand and contribute to articles and strive to achieve balance and comprehensive coverage. In addition, Wikipedia operates a number of internal resolution processes that can assist when editors disagree on content and approach. Usually, editors eventually reach a consensus on ways to improve the article.

The ideal Wikipedia article is well written, balanced, neutral, and encyclopedic, containing comprehensive, notable, verifiable knowledge. An increasing number of articles reach this standard over time, and many already have. Our best articles are called Featured Articles (and display a small star in the upper right corner of the article), and our second best tier of articles are designated Good Articles. However, this is a process and can take months or years to be achieved, as each user adds their contribution in turn. Some articles contain statements which have not yet been fully cited. Others will later be augmented with new sections. Some information will be considered by later contributors to be insufficiently founded and, therefore, may be removed.

While the overall trend is toward improvement, it is important to use Wikipedia carefully if it is intended to be used as a research source, since individual articles will, by their nature, vary in quality and maturity. Guidelines and information pages are available to help users and researchers do this effectively, as is an article that summarizes third-party studies and assessments of the reliability of Wikipedia.

plus, wikipedia is trying to make it harder for people to contribute bullstuff and in the process blocking out a lot of good participants from editing. their editing "team" has basically stopped growing and as of 2011 the percent of female contributors to edit articles is less than 15% (i.e. contributions have the potential to be super biased). so yes, while they are making it more difficult to edit things and making it more difficult to troll/add unreliable info, at the same time their contributor base is dwindling super fast.

[Menen]

Just use the sources at the bottom of the page for your bibliography. Those are "reputable sources"

[Axo-Tak]

Use the sources cited or the "Further Reading" section at the bottom of the page. If the page has no sources, then the page is unreliable and should not be used.

[Bomb Kirby]

Most of my teachers hate/hated Wikipedia.

My science teacher, however, says "You can use Wikipedia, but watch it like a hawk."

Generally, when facts are false, they're extremely obvious, such as the entire page being wiped then being replaced with spam.

[childofdarkness016]

Wikipedia, along with other encyclopedias, are tertiary sources and therefore not as reliable in most instances.

[Oasis]

Because its not research

No, because its research done for you.

[Nonnel]

haha??? i didn't edit

[Bomb Kirby]

i added spaces

I removed it from my post because I felt it was a little off topic. But anyone who can read that entire thing without spaces deserves a trophy.

Edit: aaaand now there's an edit war on that page. I haven't made a single edit but I'm thinking about reverting it to how it was before I posted it.

[Max4344]

Just get the info form Wikipedia and cite the resorces they used