Recently, I attended a presentation for Britannica Online.
To test the resource, I searched for my favorite physicist- Richard Feynman.
While Britannica gave me a brief summary of Feynman’s physics career, I was disappointed by the questions that Britannica could not answer.
They also neglected to include Feynman’s involvement with the Challenger explosion and the popular books that he wrote.
Some teacher’s give Wikipedia a hard time for it’s openness but it does a much better job at showing us the more interesting and human elements of historical figures.
Two more things that annoy me…
- We pay for Britannica while a simple search at Google or Wikipedia is free and provides richer results.
- Britannica provides MLA and APA citations at the bottom of each article. Since when is it a good idea to cite an encyclopedia? I wish they would provide references (like Wikipedia does) so students can cite the primary sources that are related to the subject and more authoritative.
The one-stop-shop argument…
Others defend resources like Britannica because they are an easy-to-use place for students to find things without having to search all over the web for what they need.
But isn’t the skill of effectively searching all over the web what our students need?
If your students are elementary level…
Then I take it all back. Britannica does a nice job getting little kids started with material that is written at their level. They also have some quasi-educational games at the Britannica Learning Zone that are worth a look.
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Regarding the annoyance of providing a citation style, this criticism should hit Wikipedia as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Cite&page=Richard_Feynman&id=335081006
If you are writing a paper about Wikipedia, you might be required to cite actual Wikipedia articles, so there is indeed a legitimate reason to cite an encyclopedia.