Dr. Neil Hair

Wikipedia? Enough already… Permit me to get something off of my chest - students use of Wikipedia, in place of traditional encyclopedia's has just got to stop. Recent high profile defamation cases illustrate the inherent quality issues with this so called body of knowledge (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4520678.stm). The legitimacy of something comprised almost entirely from joe public and zero peer assessment (until now) has to be questioned. That's not to say that it cant play a role at the start of the knowledge acquisition process (perhaps to give you a quick opinion), but it shouldn't form the basis of a serious academic argument. It appears that it cant be trusted and is certainly no substitute for legitimate databases such as ABI/Proquest. The use of www.dictionary.com is another heinous crime in my humble opinion. Business dictionaries convey a much stronger position as they are designed specifically for business professionals. Anything that defines marketing as 'to sell' has just got to go. And I'll start crying if I see another paper with www.quickmba.com as a reference, and you wouldn't want that. The way around these quality issues? Multiple citations from multiple sources, internet, book, journal, practitioner. Just no more from those sites mentioned above. update on Wikipedia: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19509-1933568,00.html