Wikipedia:External peer review/The Chronicle of Higher Education October 2006

The Chronicle of Higher Education

 * Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
 * Date: 27 October, 2006
 * Title: Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

Findings

 * Brave New World (Grade: B-): "The entry provides 'a plethora of links' and more information than the typical literary encyclopedia, says Mr. Firchow, but it is flawed by 'the annoying inaccuracies, the glaring omissions, and the inconsistencies.'" Example: "The article says Huxley wrote Brave New World in Britain and was influenced by Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopic novel We. Actually, Huxley wrote Brave New World primarily in France and said later that he had not known of We at the time"
 * African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) (Grade: C): "While there are no glaring inaccuracies, Mr. McAdam says, the entry does not provide any analytical context as to what led to the civil-rights movement or what happened afterward." Example: "Mr. McAdam notes the insufficiency of links to events before and after this particular 13 years of the movement, not to mention the lack of any broader analysis of what brought about the fight for civil rights, and the movement's political and cultural impacts."
 * Flow cytometry (Grade: A): "The main section on flow cytometry was well-done and accurate, ... but as you drop into the subsections, the accuracy drops off. I went in and actually made some corrections to these — I said, 'I can't leave these and let the record stand like this.'" Example: "At one point in the entry, the word "homologous" was misused in talking about blood transfusions."