03-14-2012, 03:28 AM
bwicklander wrote:I had an instructor knock me down a grade for using a Wikipedia - the subject matter was well known (dowry in India) she also gave credit to other students that used blogs as sources. Ticked me off!
[quote=Sam3]
I had an instructor a couple of years ago who said that she would fail anybody who used Wikipedia as a source.
....Justice!
The instructor would probably have knocked off points for using an encyclopedia as well, even if it was the Britannica. Wikipedia and encyclopedias are not considered primary sources, some would not even consider them secondary sources. Now a blog could be a primary source if you were able to confirm that the writer was writing their own experience or opinion, but not for other purposes. Citations in wikipedia can be useful for finding primary sources, but those should be compared to others.