Why do professors always give a corny smile when telling us not to "just check it out on wikipedia"?

Why does Wikipedia have such a bad rap?? Is it really bad information or just a deemed "lazy" way of researching??

It's not the bad rep why they smile. they know too many do that and they want you to really do some research :) lazy way of searching is why LOL

hmmm because he doesn't want you to??

Wikipedia is cool!!!

I actually think Wikipedia is a great source of research. Some pages are a little sketchy yeah but most should have references at the bottom showing where they got all their information.

Because professors are underpaid and overworked. Think of it. They put in more years of schooling than a medical doctor, but only make about a third of what a typical surgeon earns.

Because Wikipedia articles (not sure about now though) can be edited by anyone. Thus you can have, for example, high schoolers editing articles about rocket physics.
For example, there was an article for my school and a teacher demonstrated the dangers of Wikipedia by editing it on the spot and changing it into a very biased article.
People tend to use Wikipedia because it is very convenient but you must remember of the "dangers".

Lazy way of researching, everyone turns in Wikipedia answers!
Your professor might like to see something ORIGINAL! Or at least a source they are not familiar with.
Don't be another drone, be the next professor!
( Your either a cow in the cattle-car, or the truck driver! )

Teachers have this subconcious superiority complex. They feel that since they had to work harder to find information when they were in school, that their knowledge is more legit. When secretly they're jealous because students now have a world of knowledge a their fingertips. The same teachers that are giving you that corny smile, I guarantee they would have been using it had it been around when they were in school. Apparently they use it now at least a little, if they are familiar with what it is.

First and foremost, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. And as I understand it, encyclopedias is not a very good source for research papers or course works because it just offer broad and general information about the subjects.

This is complicated by the editable nature of the encyclopedia, where there is no guarantee that the article that you would quote on your papers is written by qualified people on the subjects.

What your professor really meant when he said "don't just check it out on wikipedia" is this:
Wikipedia is a very good source of reference materials, and probably the best starting point to begin your research if you had no other alternatives. But notice that most articles cites the source of the facts or statements contained within it, whether in the form of links to sourced websites or standard library references to sourced books.

These external sources is what you should read on and rely your paper, not just the wikipedia article. Because it is a more valid, trusted, and responsible source than wikipedia.

By the way, since you're using the term "professors", I assume we're not talking about elementary or high school research papers in here. ;)

It's not that wikipedia has bad rap the proffesor wants you to think and not just go for the easiest option.

Wikipedia is made by uncredentialed people who are not responsible for what they write except to get banned for obscenity or whatever. There is too great a margin for error in it.
A responsible, professional biographer would not be as carefree with the information as Wikipedia is. For example, I saw one entry that accused Amy Carter of being a channeler of Abraham Lincoln! That is preposterous and would never make it into a straight biography.

First, it's important to get several sources for research.
Second, although Wikipedia is a good starting point, you should always continue on from there.
Finally, your professor probably wants you to get some exercise, so walk over to the library and find some books.

Because people always change the pages:p
They put false information and it takes 10 minutes for wiki to change it so you can get the wrong stuff

Wikipedia often has a bad rap because anyone can change information on it. If you wanted to, you could go right now and change all the information on one page to something that was incorrect. A lot of the information on there is true, but unless you have a second source to back the wikipedia information up, there is no way for you to tell. I don't think it's a "lazy" way of researching; it's the same difficulty level as any authorized website. It's just not too reliable sometimes.

Because "old dogs can't learn new tricks". Wikipedia is newfangled, and they're oldfangled, if that's a word. Plus they don't understand Wikipedia's self-correcting nature, and assume you'd be too dumb to realize if, for example, the article on the American Revolution said the Battle of New York was fought in 20X6.

And they'd be partially right, because sometimes vandels can be sneaky, or people add info they think is right but really isn't. It's still a wonderful place to learn things, a place that combines a whole lot of sources into one.

So just patronize your professor. Don't cite Wikipedia itself, just go to Wikipedia, and cite the sources that any good Wikipedia article cites. You can't be blamed for just using Wikipedia as a stepping stone to more traditional sources.

Because any half-brained moronic deuchbag can write whatever they want on there, just like on here.
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