Scholarly Life of a Committed Technofile

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/1328/wikipedia-founder-discourages-academic-use-of-his-creation UGH! You can just look at the title of the link to know what the article is about. What bothers me about this is the total disregard for rhetoric. If you think rhetorically, anything can be an appropriate source dependent on the purpose and audience. And…Wikipedia is like any other encyclopedia…the beginning point for research. You don’t rely on encyclopedias as sources for critical academic articles. You either use them as starting places for your own research, or, maybe, refer to them as starting places for threads in your article that you are not going to follow, but the reader may want to. So my first rant is to all the faculty complaining about Wikipedia…grow up! First, teach rhetorically situated appropriate research for your classes (whatever the subject) and, second, remind yourself and your students what any encyclopedia is for, general information. Rant over…for now!