By saying that "it is not itself an appropriate source of citation,", the chair of history department at Middlebury College implied there would be a peril when a student cite Wikipedia for their paper. I think this is a really good advice to every other college students. However, despite the inaccuracy on a lot of its entries, I believe Wikipedia still has helped college student have a good judgment about what sources they use for their papers.
Although Wikipedia has good as well as bad sources of information, among every sources over the Internet, it has the most organizing format, informative content, and excellent writings. I feel it brings me more certainty about what I try to find for my topic when I compare the information in other sources with it. Therefore, it is sometimes a measure of 'what is right or wrong' for me.
However, I would never consider and use Wikipedia as a great source for my citation. My reason is that the content in Wikipedia entries is too general. It makes me feel like writing Wikipedia entries is just gather different sources into one. On the other hand, other sources, over the Internet, include more detailed and trustworthy information, that I believe the author spend time doing a lot of research on it.
For others policies on Wikipedia, I totally agree with them. Internet is truly a much more complex environment, so it is very hard to find reliable materials. Also, it is a very good idea to consider that judging the source could help students develop their critical thinking skills.
I think faculty could allocate a group of students (or assistants) to check the reliability of the sources to make sure if they are proper to be put on papers!
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