on Wikipedia
Feb. 9th, 2011 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seventheSo the lab report I just completed was like an introduction to polymeric manipulation and finishing methods. It was a lot more qualitative than the other lab reports - we watched demonstrations and did small experiments, and we had to answer questions rather than produce analysis and calculations.
For a lot of the questions asked, we weren't given the material to answer them in class (big surprise) and thus had to look them up. And I won't lie: out of my 20 or so citations in this report, probably 12 of them are different Wikipedia pages.
It makes me feel very funny. I'm from an age where I grew up not having the internet at my fingertips for answers -- and even when I was in university, citing a website was a fringe-y sort of no-no, or "not unless you have to" type thing. (Yup: surprise, Dear Readers, I am old.)
Now, on this report, a lot of that is just not caring - I actually emailed the professor to ask where I could find some information I was having trouble googling, and her response was "Most, if not all, of the grad students here use Wikipedia. If you want better information you can try [books X and Y] in our science library." My first response was "Oh good, Wikipedia wasn't very informative"... and that was quickly followed by "Um, it's Monday; when the hell am I going to get to the science library to look this stuff up before Friday."
No wonder online sources - Wikipedia or others; I happen to love the Macrogalleria for polymer stuff; don't laugh, it's very informative - are so common nowadays. Who wants to trudge down to a library - or even into their (really messy) study and pile of used textbooks - and flip through pages of indexes and tables of contents and chapters to find the structure of cellulose acetate? When I can type it into Google and find it in seconds? And it counts -- they don't seem to care as long as you cite it properly, and I've got ACS format all over this guy. I am a citation and reference badass.
And it seems cool in a way, too, that there is so much information out there that can be easily found and I can spend 15 minutes reading up on birefringence and dichroism before I have to answer those sections -- and then I can move right on to poly(methyl methacrylate) without having to get up and find a totally different textbook.
It's just interesting to me, the concept that something like Wikipedia is ok as long as it's cited properly and labeled. I know some of you are librarian-types, so don't laugh at me for using Wikipedia, my prof totes said it was okay and I am a lazy lazy asshole.
For a lot of the questions asked, we weren't given the material to answer them in class (big surprise) and thus had to look them up. And I won't lie: out of my 20 or so citations in this report, probably 12 of them are different Wikipedia pages.
It makes me feel very funny. I'm from an age where I grew up not having the internet at my fingertips for answers -- and even when I was in university, citing a website was a fringe-y sort of no-no, or "not unless you have to" type thing. (Yup: surprise, Dear Readers, I am old.)
Now, on this report, a lot of that is just not caring - I actually emailed the professor to ask where I could find some information I was having trouble googling, and her response was "Most, if not all, of the grad students here use Wikipedia. If you want better information you can try [books X and Y] in our science library." My first response was "Oh good, Wikipedia wasn't very informative"... and that was quickly followed by "Um, it's Monday; when the hell am I going to get to the science library to look this stuff up before Friday."
No wonder online sources - Wikipedia or others; I happen to love the Macrogalleria for polymer stuff; don't laugh, it's very informative - are so common nowadays. Who wants to trudge down to a library - or even into their (really messy) study and pile of used textbooks - and flip through pages of indexes and tables of contents and chapters to find the structure of cellulose acetate? When I can type it into Google and find it in seconds? And it counts -- they don't seem to care as long as you cite it properly, and I've got ACS format all over this guy. I am a citation and reference badass.
And it seems cool in a way, too, that there is so much information out there that can be easily found and I can spend 15 minutes reading up on birefringence and dichroism before I have to answer those sections -- and then I can move right on to poly(methyl methacrylate) without having to get up and find a totally different textbook.
It's just interesting to me, the concept that something like Wikipedia is ok as long as it's cited properly and labeled. I know some of you are librarian-types, so don't laugh at me for using Wikipedia, my prof totes said it was okay and I am a lazy lazy asshole.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 05:07 pm (UTC)I feel like that's cheating and I don't quite understand why since everyone wants me to use it. Conversely I'm probably the only person who is going to put effort into their lab report because my class is full of lazy/cocky people this round. (On a side note, how I am going to tie in the 6 labs that I've done thusfar into one report makes me die inside. This means I have no bloody CLUE how you are still alive and kicking because I think I'd be in the fetal position were I you).
I'm wondering what lab reports will be like in 10 years, dude.