Over at PrawfsBlawg, Cardozo visiting Lawprof Verity Winship (one of the all-time greatest names ever, I might add) questions the use of Wikipedia by her students:

Students have sometimes cited Wikipedia to me in class or by e-mail as their legal reference guide.  Along the lines of “As Wikipedia says, Erie means….”  Sometimes they’ve even quoted paragraphs of it to me in e-mail.  Unfortunately, this brings out the curmudgeon in me.  Law school could be a place to start learning some of the good habits (e.g., not citing Wikipedia to partners or judges, not writing e-mails you could live to regret) that will serve them well. 

Am I just behind the times?  Maybe citing Wikipedia is simply equivalent to citing a study guide/”Civil Procedure in a Nutshell” in class, which I would also discourage.  Or maybe there is something special about the way Wikipedia is compiled that makes me want to have students be critical users. 

Wikipedia, the fastest, easiest and least reliable resource available.  I LOVE Wikipedia.  Whenever I have a stupid question, something that isn’t worth spending time to properly research, I whip out my Wikipedia (well, google it, but “googling” lacks the pizzazz of “whipping”) and get a quick and dirty answer.

And that’s the problem.  It’s the easy answer, when you want an answer now, but aren’t too concerned with the accuracy of the answer.  There are many times a day when I see something that I don’t know enough about, and feel that I really need to know a little more lest I start watching Fox News for all my informational needs.  The Wiki works.   But verity, it’s not.  Nor is it really supposed to be. 

If one of Professor Winship’s students seeks to persuade his teacher Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale was released in 1967, Wikipedia is the perfect place to go.  But not to decipher the holding in a Supreme Court decision.  You see, there is already a place to ascertain the meaning of a Supreme Court decision; it’s the decision. 

One goes to the heart of what they are there to learn, while the other is the quick and dirty place to get answers to questions when the accuracy of the answers doesn’t really matter that much. 

Nor is Wikipedia the internet version of the “nutshell” series with which we are all too familiar from those days of late night libation during law school with a class the next morning.  Yes, there were times that we had to compensate for never having purchased the books, but we were never so foolish to admit this to our lawprof.  This was not a source of pride, but one of expediency.  At least have the dignity to keep it to yourself.

But at least the nutshells were vetted by somebody who somebody else thought was smart enough, clear enough and knowledgeable enough to put into a book.  Wikipedia doesn’t have that benefit.  Sure, it’s subject to edit by about a zillion people, but you never know whether that zillion has a clue or is just out there pounding the editing button to make sure their personal view of what a Supreme Court case should mean remains intact.  Yes, there are people who care that much to manipulate the wiki.

That said, I have bad news for Verity Winship.  We have taken a vote of the Curmudgeon’s Club and have determined that she has yet to qualify for membership.  Better luck next time.

And now, as if you hadn’t guessed, a musical interlude: