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A funny thing I have noticed about Wikipedia is that although citing Wikipedia itself in an academic paper is still not a good idea generally speaking, the refe

A funny thing I have noticed about Wikipedia is that although citing Wikipedia itself in an academic paper is still not a good idea generally speaking, the references provided in a Wikipedia article are usually far more relevant than the ones provided in a typical IEEE paper. It was a shock for me to discover that the "literature review" of an IEEE paper I was reading was essentially useless compared to the one provided by Wikipedia on the same topic. When combined with the fact that the IEEE paper was behind a paywall and the Wikipedia article was accessed within seconds using a search engine, I now know better how to do a literature review... Why is this the case? Part of what I have noticed about IEEE is that at least 20% of the references provided are simply added at reviewer's insistence to boost their favorite author's citation count (possibly themselves), regardless of what it has to say about the topic at hand. I don't really know how much of this extends to non-IEEE venues. What I can say is that the mathematics papers I have read provide much better references.

geezerjay 8y ago
> It was a shock for me to discover that the "literature review" of an IEEE paper I was reading was essentially useless compared to the one provided by Wikipedia on the same topic. That says nothing about wikipedia, and only indicates that you've stumbled on a poorly written paper.
forapurpose 8y ago
> the references provided in a Wikipedia article are usually far more relevant than the ones provided in a typical IEEE paper IME, speaking of academic research in general, often an almost completely different body of knowledge is cited by each. One is high-quality academic research, the other is general 'Internet knowledge', for lack of a better word. The latter often completely misses the boat.
aesthesia 8y ago
I've found the opposite--the academic sources cited on many Wikipedia pages (in math and adjacent areas) are seldom comprehensive and often insufficient for the topic. Literature reviews in decent papers, on the other hand, usually clue me in to entire swaths of the literature that I was previously unaware of.

geezerjay 8y ago

> It was a shock for me to discover that the "literature review" of an IEEE paper I was reading was essentially useless compared to the one provided by Wikipedia on the same topic. That says nothing about wikipedia, and only indicates that you've stumbled on a poorly written paper.

forapurpose 8y ago

> the references provided in a Wikipedia article are usually far more relevant than the ones provided in a typical IEEE paper IME, speaking of academic research in general, often an almost completely different body of knowledge is cited by each. One is high-quality academic research, the other is general 'Internet knowledge', for lack of a better word. The latter often completely misses the boat.

aesthesia 8y ago

I've found the opposite--the academic sources cited on many Wikipedia pages (in math and adjacent areas) are seldom comprehensive and often insufficient for the topic. Literature reviews in decent papers, on the other hand, usually clue me in to entire swaths of the literature that I was previously unaware of.