Editing Wikipedia (section)

=== Discouragement in education ===
{{update section|date=December 2020}}
Most university [[lecturer]]s discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in [[academia|academic work]], preferring [[primary source]]s;<ref name="WideWorldOfWikipedia" /> some specifically prohibit Wikipedia citations.<ref name="insidehighered against WP 1">{{cite journal |last1 = Waters |first1 = N.L. |title = Why you can't cite Wikipedia in my class |doi = 10.1145/1284621.1284635 |journal = Communications of the ACM |volume = 50 |issue = 9 |page = 15 |year = 2007 |citeseerx = 10.1.1.380.4996|s2cid = 11757060 }}</ref><ref name="insidehighered wiki no cite">{{cite web |first = Scott |last = Jaschik |title = A Stand Against Wikipedia |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki |website = Inside Higher Ed |date = January 26, 2007 |access-date = January 27, 2007}}</ref> Wales stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate to use as citable sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.<ref name="AWorkInProgress" /> Wales once (2006 or earlier) said he receives about ten [[email]]s weekly from students saying they got failing grades on papers because they cited Wikipedia; he told the students they got what they deserved. "For God's sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia," he said.<ref name="Jimmy Wales don't cite WP 1">"Jimmy Wales", ''Biography Resource Center Online''. (Gale, 2006.)</ref>

In February 2007, an article in ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'' newspaper reported that a few of the professors at [[Harvard University]] were including Wikipedia articles in their [[syllabus|syllabi]], although without realizing the articles might change.<ref name="thecrimson wiki debate">{{cite news |last1=Child |first1=Maxwell L. |title=Professors Split on Wiki Debate |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517305 |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |date=February 26, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081220125910/https://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517305 |archive-date=December 20, 2008 |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> In June 2007, former president of the [[American Library Association]] [[Michael Gorman (librarian)|Michael Gorman]] condemned Wikipedia, along with [[Google]], stating that academics who endorse the use of Wikipedia are "the intellectual equivalent of a dietitian who recommends a steady diet of Big Macs with everything".<ref name="stothart" />

In contrast, academic writing{{clarify|date=December 2020}} in Wikipedia has evolved in recent years and has been found to increase student interest, personal connection to the product, creativity in material processing, and international collaboration in the learning process.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=403|title=Wikishtetl: Commemorating Jewish Communities that Perished in the Holocaust through the Wikipedia Platform :: Quest CDEC journal|website=www.quest-cdecjournal.it|date=July 31, 2018|access-date=January 15, 2020}}</ref>

==== Medical information ====
{{see also|Health information on Wikipedia}}
On March 5, 2014, Julie Beck writing for ''The Atlantic'' magazine in an article titled "Doctors' #1 Source for Healthcare Information: Wikipedia", stated that "Fifty percent of physicians look up conditions on the (Wikipedia) site, and some are editing articles themselves to improve the quality of available information."<ref name="Julie Beck 2014">Julie Beck. "Doctors' #1 Source for Healthcare Information: Wikipedia". ''The Atlantic'', March 5, 2014.</ref> Beck continued to detail in this article new programs of [[Amin Azzam]] at the [[University of San Francisco]] to offer medical school courses to medical students for learning to edit and improve [[health information on Wikipedia|Wikipedia articles on health-related issues]], as well as internal quality control programs within Wikipedia organized by [[James Heilman]] to improve a group of 200 health-related articles of central medical importance up to Wikipedia's highest standard of articles using its Featured Article and Good Article peer-review evaluation process.<ref name="Julie Beck 2014" /> In a May 7, 2014, follow-up article in ''The Atlantic'' titled "Can Wikipedia Ever Be a Definitive Medical Text?", Julie Beck quotes WikiProject Medicine's James Heilman as stating: "Just because a reference is peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's a high-quality reference."<ref name="theatlantic.com">{{cite magazine |last = Beck |first = Julie |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/can-wikipedia-ever-be-a-definitive-medical-text/361822/ |title = Can Wikipedia Ever Be a Definitive Medical Text? |magazine = The Atlantic |date = May 7, 2014 |access-date = June 14, 2014}}</ref> Beck added that: "Wikipedia has its own peer review process before articles can be classified as 'good' or 'featured'. Heilman, who has participated in that process before, says 'less than one percent' of Wikipedia's medical articles have passed."<ref name="theatlantic.com" />