I hear faculty criticize Wikipedia all the time. I have to disagree. It is an excellent first stop on the way to understanding and researching topics in Earth Sciences. Students should feel free to use it, but not to reference it too many times in their papers. For this, they need to try to get closer to some original sources, many of which are freely available online through the library, and others are referenced at the end of Wikipedia articles. I encourage all students to take time and look at the Discussion Tab next to the article tab. This will let you know if the subject or any of the entries are at all controversial. Britannica is also available free to students online through the library and this is also a good option for a “first look”. Beyond encyclopedias, students should just check the library for texts on paleontology and especially Netlibrary.
I think teachers are too reactionary to Wikipedia. Textbooks can have typos and misleading information in them. Not to mention, printed resources can easily become outdated especially in certain fields. I agree with your stance. I think Wikipedia is quick way to get introduced to something. However, I wouldn’t reference but try to find where the material originally came from or review other sources that shows support for the Wikipedia entry. I believe that with most things is to cull the information and create a meta-analysis of the information. What is the percentage of support and so forth. 🙂
I clearly agree, and when it comes to text books or other sources on line you do not get to see an adjacent tab with all the comments from people who may not agree with what is written in the text!