How you can tell we're in the future

[shermarama]

I'm reading a book called 'Nanochemistry: A Chemical Approach to Nanomaterials', published by the RSC. It has a picture in it of one of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, from the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal. The picture is credited as being reproduced with permission from "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org". If the RSC think it's all right to cite wikipedia, how can any mere student argue?

Comments

[spaglet.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there's any way to put a student down without losing face. Not because a (lecturer? teacher?) may be wrong, but because rhetoric doesn't seem to get around much these days. Besides, if it's this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Night_view_of_American_pavillion_e001096692.jpg) shouldn't they be citing the Library of Canada, really? They'd probably get a picture that's better quality too.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Surely it is crediting Wikipedia for use of the pic, rather than citing it as an academic resource, tho?

[tenthmedieval.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Certainly. Wikipedia is an excellent source of decent-quality images that you're allowed to use, because they're all under Creative Commons. Assuming that you have the nous to know that what is in the picture is what it says it is, why not use it? It's not a citation at all. That would indeed deserve flaying, especially with that kind of citation. Yes, what this article should be marked down for is not providing a full URL or an access date, that's what.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

We can't stop authors citing stupid things. (We can sneak in access dates when they're not looking, but sadly someone else edits the books.)