One more time: in cyberspace ...

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Does it really matter that the lecturer in question has a doctorate? Well, yes and no. Though the well known adage tells us that "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog", in this particular case, having credentials actually makes all the difference. After all, if a ten year old pupil quotes from the Wikipedia in a paper he or she is preparing for school, chances are slim that the teacher is going to question his or her using such a source, or, more to the point, is going to expect the pupil to distinguish between different sorts of sources and their reliability. I tend to think that nobody would really care.

We do, however, have good reason to assume that a lecturer with a doctorate knows the difference between an encyclopedia edited by professionals and a sort of free wheeling collection of commentary. If, that is, there really is a difference.

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Go to: Too Common Knowledge.