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I was looking on Amazon for books to profile on my GA site, and I found this book on the American Revolution:http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Are-American-Revolution/dp/1466388382/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1331005364&sr=8-11I clicked on the “Look Inside” button and perused. I went to the “sources”, and noticed that pretty much all the information contained in the “book” was taken from different Wikipedia entries(!). Talk about flying in under the radar! I think that most high school – or even college – students would check out this book without giving much thought to the sources of the information. What tipped me off was the unusual name of the publisher. Anyway, something to think about when doing research yourself, or when dealing with the research of others.
I have seen books put on Google Books which are just repackaged Wikipedia articles, but those usually state clearly that Wikipedia is a source. As you say, the book I linked to above is “edited” (so the editor's name appears as author) making it more difficult to see what the ultimate source is.
It is kind of scary actually as most people would not bother to check source attribution as you stated earlier. A symptom of the dumbing down of the world?
Back in the early 70s, the U.S. History Book at the high school where I taught had this question:Jefferson admired John Locke. Hamilton admired Julius Caesar. What does this say about the two men?Forget most of today's highschoolers except the A.P.'ers — can most undergrads handle it today?
