[MUSIC] Hi, in this tutorial we'll practice evaluating a source by applying the criteria that we've covered so far. To do this, we'll look at Wikipedia. Before we begin, I just want to say that I'm not going to tell you not to use Wikipedia. However, you do have to be smart in how, when and why you use it. So, I'm going to evaluate the Artificial Intelligence article based on wanting to use it as a reference in the essay we've been researching. I'm going to need to check Wikipedia for scholarly purpose, authority, audience, objectivity, accuracy and currency. Our first criterion is scholarly purpose. Because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it does have a scholarly purpose at heart. The language is relatively academic, the articles are often thousands of words long and there is a very definite attempt at referencing throughout the whole website. However, while Wikipedia might have some pretensions to academic purpose, it does have issues. As Giles points out, articles can be poorly structured and confusing, the references are not always credible and the language is not academic. McHenry, a former editor for Encyclopedia Britannica, once commented that the entry on Alexander Hamilton was written in a style that might be expected of a high school student. Even when the article is well written and well referenced however, remember that it is essentially an encyclopedia, meaning that for most fields, it's a tertiary source at best. So, that's a no for scholarly purpose. The second criterion is authority, and this is Wikipedia's biggest credibility issue. Many people claim that most of Wikipedia's articles are actually written and maintained by academics or enthusiasts in the field, but this isn't always the case. In fact, one study suggests the majority of content on Wikipedia is contributed by only a small percentage of editors, and as such, popular opinion often takes precedence over academic thought. Looking at the existential risk section of the article and the area that could be of use in our essay, as it deals with big picture social questions, a quote by Steven Hawking is given prominence. However, as one user points out in the talk section, Hawking is a renowned physicist, not a programmer or an evolutionary biologist, and as such his contribution is arguably based on his status as a celebrity scientist. In addition to this, as no editor is listed, we have no way of checking their credibility. In fact, one critique that's often leveled at Wikipedia is that anyone can change the content of an entry. As you can see, it's really easy, I can go in and write something completely false. However, those kinds of unhelpful contributions are often remedied in minutes. It's amateurs giving undue prominence to controversial scientific theories that really concerns academics. So while an article could have been written by an academic, it could equally have been written or edited by someone with little to no qualifications. So Wikipedia fails on authority. Our third criterion is audience, and as an encyclopedia Wikipedia's not intended for academics, it's aimed at the general public. So, again, Wikipedia fails for audience. Fourth is objectivity. Without knowing who the author is, how do you know if the information is objective? Generally speaking, encyclopedias are, but not Wikipedia. While Wikipedia makes every attempt to correct for bias, systemic bias arising from the fact that editors and authors write about what they're interested in is very apparent. The largest demographic of editors are males in their mid 20s. One example, at the time of writing this, the article on Star Wars was larger the article on women in science, and only slightly shorter then the article on Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus objectivity is, at best, questionable. Fifth is accuracy, generally speaking Wikipedia is well referenced and there are other sources that back up most of the information presented. In a 2005 study published by Nature comparing Wikipedia to Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia had an average of four mistakes per entry, and Britannica had an average of three. However, again we come back to the essential nature of Wikipedia, anyone can change the content at any time. The Nature article was published over ten years ago, and the content of Wikipedia has changed dramatically since then. It could equally be more accurate, or less accurate or both, so accuracy is questionable. And last, currency. As should be obvious by now, the information on Wikipedia could be written at any time, so it could be current. But in 2006, Wikipedia started to incorporate the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Today, there are over 12,000 articles that contain text directly from it, meaning these sources are over 100 years old. While the editors at Wikipedia make every effort to update this information and indicate when information from this edition is used, it's of no doubt that the currency of Wikipedia is completely variable. Thus, for the currency criterion, Wikipedia gets another question mark. You'll notice that failing the authority criteria has had an effect on the other five aspects of credibility, and that is without even checking the web based criteria. So, Wikipedia's not an entirely reliable source. The majority of your lecturers won't accept it, so don't reference it. However, it is a great resource, Wiki's articles cover the basics for you, and give you a great starting point in your research. They often come with reference lists, so it can be a great way to find out about key articles in the field. But, just remember that Wikipedia's scholarly purpose, authority, audience, objectivity, accuracy, and currency are all at best questionable. So, for this assignment, I wouldn't use it. [MUSIC]
