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a word to students
The principles behind my writing and edits are simple: truth, clarity, verifiability, and reasonableness.
The principles behind my writing and edits are simple: truth, clarity, verifiability, and reasonableness.
==A Word to Students about Wikis==
It is my sincere belief that students who follow the links on this website are already showing a great deal of curiosity. A wiki article can be a good place to satisfy one's desire to learn, but in this editor's opinion is even better as a jumping-off point for further learning.
The reason why an encyclopedia requires sources, and why wiki administrators ideally are very strict about requiring footnotes and extensive bibliographies, is not only to prove that the information is verifiable, but to give the reader a hint as to where more detailed information can be obtained. It is even more ideal if the sources point to books, where a subject can be learned about in depth.
It is both a blessing and a curse that the internet has allowed the curious such quick ways as wikis to read an overview of a given subject. Before these wikis became popular, one needed to go to a library, open an encyclopedia, and then follow the references to other books in the library. This method took much more time than doing an internet search, but the advantage was that the books mentioned in encyclopedia articles were often close at hand in the library, and once one had found a desired book in a particular section of the bookshelves, there were often several related books in the same area. Of course all of this would be too much for the student to take in in one day, but they would know where to look if further research was ever necessary.
Compare this with a wiki, where an article can typically be longer than one in a bound encyclopedia. It's possible to completely satisfy one's curiosity in around ten minutes. The problem is, it gives the illusion of completeness. One needn't go to find books on the subject, because the article seems to say it all at first glance, whereas the library method lets a student know that any subject has a great wealth of information written about it.
As an editor here at Conservapedia, I do my best within my area of expertise to give a reliable ''summary'' of the scholarship on a particular topic, a good entry point for a student who is curious to learn more. I must emphasize though, that all wikis are inadequate: they oversimplify, they contain bias, and there's a great possibility that they contain errors. This is why following the sources is always a good idea. A book on a subject, or a more specialized encyclopedia, will most likely be written by an expert, who has spent his or her life studying the topic they have written about. As with any human, the writer will also have biases, but a bias based on an in-depth knowledge of the subject is preferable to an ideological bias that imposes an oversimplified worldview on every subject they opine on.
An expert can tell you exactly where their knowledge begins and ends, but the ideologue will proclaim himself an expert on everything. The ideologue proves his simplified view of the world with circular logic, dismissing any evidence that does not fit his view as irrelevant. About this kind of person, Geoffery Chaucer had already understood and deflated their arrogance over 600 years ago. Out of the whole cast of ''Canterbury Tales'', he perhaps reserves the most scorn for the character of the Monk, of whom he writes, "And I said his opinion was right; why should he study and lose his wits ever poring over a book in the cloister, or toil with his hands and labor as St. Augustine bids?" <ref>translation by Gerard NeCastro http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/chaucer/translation/ct/01gp.html</ref> In other words, the Monk did not need to read a book, because he was already correct in thought; he did not need to waste his time fulfilling the church's commandment to do good works and give to charity, because he was already correct in deed.
In summary, don't forget that the brick-and-mortar library is still the ideal place to learn, and that whatever can be found on the internet is still only a tiny fraction of what is out there. Let your curiosity be your guide, and most of all, do not put all of your trust in one website for information.