the most intellectually honest way to cite

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm sure many of you cite papers referenced by Wikipedia - but leave out that you found those papers by means of Wikipedia. Some of you may also cite papers referenced by blogs you read, or online forums where others pointed you to a valid link.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, I think it would be more intellectually honest if you found the link and gave the source of how you found that link out (that way, in an ideal world, we'd be able to at least identify which people are more likely to find papers with a "lazy search" and which are more likely to identify papers only after a good examination of the related literature).</p>

<p>So the intellectually honest person would cite a "Mutations in a gene on Chromosome 23 may trigger Autism" paper he found off Wikipedia - and then mention that he found it off Wikipedia. :p</p>

<p>Of course, no one's going to do this. It's unenforceable. Also by definition, the most intellectually honest person should list out the entire process over which he worked on his project - which is obviously useless. </p>

<p>Nonetheless, such thinking can be helpful if the student has been questioned. The average person who uses Wikipedia to cite all of his papers is probably less knowledgeable in the subject than the average person who went to university libraries to find resources for his papers. </p>

<p>Just a random thought. ^_^</p>

2

<p>Hmm, I don't see why not. I mean, citations for anything found off of EBSCO-Host (MLA and APA, I believe), require you to list EBSCO in the citation.</p>

3

<p>augh, and make the process of citing resources even longer?</p>

<p>Maybe it's more honest, but it really doesn't matter as much how you found them. Most people are more concerned with the quality of the source, and they can tell the depth of your search (Wikipedia vs. university library) by the content of the paper.</p>

4

<p>I would do so, if my teachers wouldn't hang me from the nearest tree for doing so.</p>

5

<p>In university, teacher and TA's will mark you down for citing encyclopedias (and wikipedia especially) as a general rule. They want you to use academic articles, papers, and books.</p>