Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Decks' Deceit

So I've been studying for boards lately, and I've been using Dental Decks, a set of pre-fab flashcards, to do so.  Now these decks aren't cheap, mind you.  They charge $245 for the set of them, and while I agree that they are helpful and I must say I didn't pay for my set (thanks, sister!), I am still a little irked by the apparent laziness I've found embedded in the decks.

I usually like to supplement or cross check information while I'm studying with the ever so fabulous internet.  This usually takes me to Wikipedia, where many of my questions can be answered.  So while reading a flashcard about the way a nephron works, I sought out to find some good images to accompany my studies, and ended up on this Wikipedia entry.

And then I noticed...

hmm.. this description sounds oddly familiar..

YOU COPIED FROM WIKIPEDIA!?


How many cards have I studied that are copy-and-pasted from Wikipedia?  Doesn't everyone say to use Wikipedia cautiously since its entries can be edited by anybody?  Does Dental Decks know this? Do they care?  Do they like charging us pathetic dental students hundreds of dollars for Wikipedia entries chopped up into conveniently sized blocks of hell?  Thanks a lot, Dental Decks. I guess at least this eliminates my need to read Wikipedia entries to compare descriptions of biochemical and physiologic processes.

1 comment:

  1. How can you be sure the Wikipedia entry didn't come from Dental Decks? Huh? Huh?

    ReplyDelete