Late at night wikipedia wandering

[Johan]

As a boy, I read every book I can find- 1 book or more each week very often.

I think about what I would have done if internet exist when I am young boy. I think my school work and study and focus might have suffered- too much information on too many subject. My hours of sleep each night would have been very low for growing boy- the library closes at night, not internet.

When awake late at night I will read 20+ link from topic I read about on wikipedia.

I know you must verify with your own research if you use wikipedia for information for serious study.

But good example of why I like wikipedia for 'late night reading'.

Tonight, I learn about Blue Star and Gold Star Service Flag for USA (thank you, CB- it leads to 2 excellent story I was not aware of).

Then I learn of excellent story of Astronaut John Glen:

"In the 1974 Ohio Senate Primary race between Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn, Metzenbaum contrasted his business background with Glenn's military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had "never worked for a living." Glenn's reply came to be known as the "Gold Star Mothers" speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans' hospital and "look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn't hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job."

And I learn of Sullivan Brother of US Navy in World War 2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_brothers

I am certain almost all member of SOCNET know of Sullivan Brothers, now I know- sad and amazing story.

Regards,

[whiskeySierra]

That's a great story.

Wikipedia keeps me up, too. Just start reading some of the articles on physics and the links just go on and on and on.

My professors can trash talk wikipedia all they want but I think it's one of the mot amazing resources of the 21st century. The amount of info on there is absolutely mind boggling.

One of my Poli Sci professors went on the WWII page and edited it near the end. He stated that 'Japan eventually won the war', that information was left there for over two years before someone caught it. He was trying to use that as an example of why we couldn't trust the site. Just kinda made me mad at him for screwing with it.

[BertF]

I am more likely to be kept up by Youtube...dot the I at Ohio State, Texas A&M marches to the stadium playing "Green Berets," The Chinese Army on parade, Errol Flynn leads the Michigan cavalry at Gettysburg...You can sit around all night and watch the best scenes from various movies.

In the old days (before you whippersnappers had computers) you went to the biggest library you could find and spend the weekend (yeah, 16 hours) going through the stacks and having reference librarians bring you up dusty books from the basement vaults. You spent hours in the catalogs finding the reference books you needed, then wrote out a request for each one, handed it in and waited to be called to the desk when your book came up the elevator. You were interested in Iwo Jima, there might be 100 books on the subject. They brought one up and you checked the contents first, then skip read it while you waited for the next book. You took real notes with a real pencil and filled a notebook.

Today you guys go on the computer, cut and paste for 40 minutes and think you did research. The only think you researched was the reference that someone put on the Internet. There are thousands (maybe millions) of books and articles that have never been put on line, but they never tell you that.

Well, it is a different age. No need to spend two or three weekends looking for a wartime news story and searching every single copy of Look, Time, Life, the NY Times, etc. from 1941 to 1945 trying to find where that ship went down and if there were survivors. You guys got it knocked! If you don't find something on the computer you think it never happened. Good research in a real library might find you 20 books that mention it.

I guess it is a lot better today. You can do in an hour or two what used to take weeks down at the NYC Main library on 42nd Street. I think you kind of miss the joy of the real hunt, that search for the perfect book, and then ferreting our its secrets. But you are done in time for lunch. And of course, you don't have to do all that tiring thinking about how you will write it up when someone has already done it for you. Just cut and paste.

[Massgrunt]

Today you guys go on the computer, cut and paste for 40 minutes and think you did research. The only think you researched was the reference that someone put on the Internet. There are thousands (maybe millions) of books and articles that have never been put on line, but they never tell you that.

Well, it is a different age. No need to spend two or three weekends looking for a wartime news story and searching every single copy of Look, Time, Life, the NY Times, etc. from 1941 to 1945 trying to find where that ship went down and if there were survivors. You guys got it knocked! If you don't find something on the computer you think it never happened. Good research in a real library might find you 20 books that mention it.

I guess it is a lot better today. You can do in an hour or two what used to take weeks down at the NYC Main library on 42nd Street. I think you kind of miss the joy of the real hunt, that search for the perfect book, and then ferreting our its secrets. But you are done in time for lunch. And of course, you don't have to do all that tiring thinking about how you will write it up when someone has already done it for you. Just cut and paste.
"In MY day..."

Plagiarism is still plagiarism. Harder is not necessarily smarter or better and sweat equity isn't part of the equation. I'm not sure you have a real good idea how this actually works. Back in 1996 or so I wrote a paper on frogs being born with deformities all over the world, the causes and the implications. Using the internet I was able to quickly track down and get in touch with the main guy on the biggest study of the issue. He sent me reams of info, which I used as source material for a well-researched, non-plagiarized paper that I got an "A" on. I guess that "A" might have been a little more deserved if I'd had to use the Pony Express and telegraph but I didn't have that kind of time. ;)

[Max Power]

"In MY day..."

Plagiarism is still plagiarism. Harder is not necessarily smarter or better and sweat equity isn't part of the equation. I'm not sure you have a real good idea how this actually works. Back in 1996 or so I wrote a paper on frogs being born with deformities all over the world, the causes and the implications. Using the internet I was able to quickly track down and get in touch with the main guy on the biggest study of the issue. He sent me reams of info, which I used as source material for a well-researched, non-plagiarized paper that I got an "A" on. I guess that "A" might have been a little more deserved if I'd had to use the Pony Express and telegraph but I didn't have that kind of time. ;)

What you said is much nicer than what I'm thinking as a response...

Thank you ;)

[TXAggie05]

You can look up a lot of primary sources - for my last paper, I skimmed through a bunch of newspapers from the 1950s- online. And cut/paste will get you a fat F with utilities that check for plagiarism against those online resources. Not trying to be contrary - just that there is always another side to the story. Also... I can contact my library by email, have them find me a book from the dusty stacks, and deliver it to my mailbox. They will also purchase literally any book I need that they don't already have. Sure it's less work, but that gives more time to research. Study smarter, not harder.;)

[HighDragLowSpeed]

I have the utmost respect for those that remember young Dewey Decimal when he was just an integer like this:

1 - fire
2 - wheel

But, the anchilles heel of that approach was that one generally had to go to the information. I remember having to travel to a particular library that had a particular research source that wasn't on microfiche (did I just really write that?) and couldn't be sent to my local library.

I like the idea that the internet has made research far more collaborative, interactive, and social. I also like that information can come to me and that I can trip over information that I may be able to advance in some way from my own life experience to which I might not otherwise be exposed.

[smoked]

What you said is much nicer than what I'm thinking as a response...



hahahaha... ditto.

Research is much easier with the internets. I take classes online and every damn class has a research paper, some two or more. Two classes at a time can be a bitch to keep up with. Even 100 level courses have papers. I work a lot harder writing those papers in 100 and 200 level classes than I did when I went to class only on test day back in the days before the WWW.

As massgrunt pointed out, plagiarism is plagiarism and the professors have internet access also, and they can use this thing called Google to search phrases...phrases that may have been copied and pasted.

Also, I never walk to school...ten miles, barefoot, in the snow, one way...

[Amarillo]

I can sit and read Wikipedia articles for hours. It's like listening to a couple of seasoned pros talking over beers in the back yard. I don't trust everything I read on the internet as gospel truth, but at least it gives me a place to start.

Wikipedia has an especially evil feature called Random Article. Cllick that button three times and you are guaranteed to find an interesting read, or a link to one. This one came up last night:
"Gunga Din" (1892) is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poems, perhaps best known for its often-quoted last stanza, "Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer (a "bhisti") who saves the soldier's life but dies himself.
Got me interested in reading some more about Kipling, which in turn put me on to a good theme for a upcoming Cub Scout meeting.

[Massgrunt]

http://turnitin.com/static/index.html

This website is a tool used by instructors to vet papers for plagiarism. The arms race continues.

[MPCOA]

Mass, you seemed a little too well schooled on this plagiarism stuff, you buddies with the VP?

[Purple36]

http://turnitin.com/static/index.html

This website is a tool used by instructors to vet papers for plagiarism. The arms race continues.

We had to use Turnitin in the SGM Academy as well when it came time to turn in our research paper.

[BertF]

I never walked 10 miles either...but I did walk, in the snow and the rain :-)

Some of the posters imply that cut and paste is not a problem and I am just an old fart. Well, right on point two, but if cut and paste is not a problem and everyone is doing original work, why is there now a whole slew of programs being sold and used by professors to catch all those people that are cutting and pasting. Hell, I got 93 requests already this year from students that asked me how to footnote my stuff because they were sampling my articles. I don't mind, that is why they are on the Internet.

The funny part is that all I really wanted to say in my first post was that using the Internet may not find you all the references that are available since many have never been placed on the Internet. At the library you have the chance to see everything that has been written, not just those that have been selected for reproduction and posting on some website.

hahahaha... ditto.

Research is much easier with the internets. I take classes online and every damn class has a research paper, some two or more. Two classes at a time can be a bitch to keep up with. Even 100 level courses have papers. I work a lot harder writing those papers in 100 and 200 level classes than I did when I went to class only on test day back in the days before the WWW.

As massgrunt pointed out, plagiarism is plagiarism and the professors have internet access also, and they can use this thing called Google to search phrases...phrases that may have been copied and pasted.

Also, I never walk to school...ten miles, barefoot, in the snow, one way...

[magician]

I agree, Bert.

Bunch of whippersnappers here. :smile:

This is one of the reasons why I am an advocate for Google's efforts to digitize all the old books. All of them.

One of the things that chaps my ass is when I find something that I need to read, and it is behind some kind of "pay wall" for scholars. They are pleased to let me read it if my "institution" has a subscription. As if I would be a member of any organization that would have me as a member.

Bastards. Did they not get the memo?

Information needs to be free.

:smile:

[DirtyDog0311]

I don't think there was one paper that I didn't "plagarize" via Wikipedia. The turnitin.com search engine just looks for the student's words that exactly match other published papers in the sequence in which they occur. The easy way around this is to copy and paste the article you want to use and re-write it in your own words. You also have to watch the flow of the ideas too. You can't just rewrite the original article word for word, paragraph by paragraph. You have to interrupt the flow of the original paper with other ideas that you could get from other sources.

So, maybe that's not "technically" plagarism. However, using that trick, I've gotten many A's on papers even though I only started writing them the night before. Its a GREAT time saver. And during my YEARS in college, I was never questioned on it ONCE. Even though the majority of my papers were turned in using turnitin.com

Also, when in doubt......CITE IT. Can't hurt you. I just hate making those fucking 'works cited' pages. With all of its god-damn formatting criteria, they can all go to Hell.

Edit to Add: Bert probably hates me now, bahaha.

[smoked]

I never walked 10 miles either...but I did walk, in the snow and the rain :-)
Barefoot? :smile:



Some of the posters imply that cut and paste is not a problem and I am just an old fart. Well, right on point two, but if cut and paste is not a problem and everyone is doing original work, why is there now a whole slew of programs being sold and used by professors to catch all those people that are cutting and pasting. Hell, I got 93 requests already this year from students that asked me how to footnote my stuff because they were sampling my articles. I don't mind, that is why they are on the Internet.

The funny part is that all I really wanted to say in my first post was that using the Internet may not find you all the references that are available since many have never been placed on the Internet. At the library you have the chance to see everything that has been written, not just those that have been selected for reproduction and posting on some website.

I hear ya'. Surprised that students had to ask how to footnote. Hell, you can google that! ;)

My experience before the Internet was that I never had to write papers in 100-200 level classes. Like I said in previous post, EVERY online class I've taken has required research papers.

I've been in IT for the better part of 14 years. I *thought* I'd breeze through those classes in online courses. Well, I do really, but the workload is much more because of all the writing required. And, we have to cite EVERYTHING. Even when I can write an essay based on my experience alone, I still have to go out and find supporting sources and cite them. Also, not all classes use the same citation methods - some use "Chicago style" and others use "APA / MLA." EVERY instructor is a damn stickler regarding citations. I guess they're well aware of the copy/paste plagiarism you describe.

Given these new tools, you'd think it'd be more difficult to get away with plagiarism and thus cut down on student offenses....

[Max Power]

I never walked 10 miles either...but I did walk, in the snow and the rain :-)

Some of the posters imply that cut and paste is not a problem and I am just an old fart. Well, right on point two, but if cut and paste is not a problem and everyone is doing original work, why is there now a whole slew of programs being sold and used by professors to catch all those people that are cutting and pasting. Hell, I got 93 requests already this year from students that asked me how to footnote my stuff because they were sampling my articles. I don't mind, that is why they are on the Internet.

Yes, because it is impossible to do the same thing as cut and paste (i.e. sit at a typewriter and retype exactly from a book) in the days before "the Internets"...

The problem I had with your post is the attitude that all us whippersnappers are just plagiarizing left and right because its so easy. It is no easier than it used to be, IMO, and thanks to the same advantages in technology that you cite, it is now EASIER for professors to CATCH plagiarism. ;)

Unscrupulous/unethical behavior is the same as it has always been, all technology has done is make it easier to catch, IMO.

The funny part is that all I really wanted to say in my first post was that using the Internet may not find you all the references that are available since many have never been placed on the Internet. At the library you have the chance to see everything that has been written, not just those that have been selected for reproduction and posting on some website.

On that, I can completely agree with you.

[xfrogTX]

How many Psyops specialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? 2, 1 to actually screw it in, and Bert F to tell him how tough it was to screw in the bulb in HIS day! :biggrin::biggrin: Just joking, Bert.

[whiskeySierra]

Bert, I hear you. All I was saying is that I appreciate having all this knowledge at my finger tips, not for a cut and paste 10 page, double spaced research paper. But rather for my own edification. I suffer from severe and distracting curiosity and feel that I have learned much from browsing wikipedia for fun.

Perhaps we should view wikipedia as a condensing and consolidating of all those articles and books, expediting the extrapolation of knowledge. Never a replacement...simply a mechanism to save time. Something surely all you high speeders appreciate.

And yes I am a whippersnapper...note my screen name.

Cheers

[Sigaba]

This is one of the reasons why I am an advocate for Google's efforts to digitize all the old books. All of them. My issue with Google's digitized books is that they're scanned as images without OCR being enabled during the scanning process. So even after finding a book, one has to do some tweaking with Adobe Acrobat before being able to search it properly.

One of the things that chaps my ass is when I find something that I need to read, and it is behind some kind of "pay wall" for scholars.
And it isn't just that one has to pay, but that one has to pay a lot without really knowing the quality of what one is purchasing.

[0699]

I'm a big fan of Wikipedia; always something new to read about when I'm bored. :biggrin:

My kids aren't allowed to use Wikipedia as a source for ANY of their papers (school's rules, not mine) but the better articles on Wikipedia do provides citations & sources, so I consider it a good starting point. Too often if you type "buddhist philosophy" in Google, you get hits that are all across the spectrum, but if you read the "buddhist philosophy" page in Wikipedia, it'll get you pointed in the right direction.