How to Use Wikipedia (Not)

There's a great post up on Andy Carvin's learning.now blog about using Wikipedia for college level research. There are so many misconceptions about Wikipedia out there that this post is wonderful for its clear-headed positions as put forth by Andy and the people he spoke to. Even representatives from Wikipedia itself agreed with the new policy at Middlebury College that says students can't cite the web site in their research. They said Wikipedia is good for getting an overview of a topic and finding references to other reputable websites but it shouldn't ever be considered the definitive authority on a topic. The valuable thing to remember here is that it's both inappropriate to rely on it as the sole authority or ban its use completely. It has great value as an introduction to almost any topic but you've got to take it from there.