Wikipedia's reliability as a source.

Nick

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    I remember in school, teachers would hate it when you cited Wikipedia in an essay. I never understood why. You could argue that anyone can edit Wikipedia and make things up, which is true, but Wikipedia is heavily moderated to make sure things like that are put out nearly immediately after the problem was made.

    Is Wikipedia a reliable source for research purposes?
     
    Live_Wire466 said:
    If there are valid citations at the bottom, I see no reason why not to use it, and I sure don't see why such a big deal is made by teachers in grade school and college. I understand it may bot be "scholarly" but information is information. Facts are facts.
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    In my experience, the teachers who told me that are people I didn't peg to be tech-savvy. XD
    Wikipedia has become the #1 go-to place for immediate information for the majority of those who know how to work a mouse and keyboard, after all.
     
    My Teachers have said, and this is true, that the only reasons that we students couldn't go on Wikipedia is this:

    Anyone can post on Wikipedia.

    But you know when you write a paper or a story or something, you get people to REVISE and EDIT your story so it can be BETTER. Isn't that what Wikipedia is? Just a bunch of people revising and editing to make that info oh so accurate. So I think it would be a reliable source, considering that people revise and edit it correctly.
     
    Wikipedia has been reliable source for me - always. It's heavily moderated and they have power to lock articles so no one can edit them. I've used Wikipedia a long time and I'm so thankfully. Life without Wikipedia would be little harder when you do schoolwork.
     
    While I could empathize with the thought that there seems to be a cabal of sorts in academia against Wikipedia, you shouldn't be citing the Wikipedia article itself in your papers. If there isn't a source to back up the information in the article, you should question its validity. (And if it's so obvious that it doesn't require a source in the article, should it even need a citation in your paper?) Use the sources provided by the Wikipedia entry for its information, or do further research yourself.

    I remember my own particular experience with Wikipedia hate in my International Business class last semester, in which the Professor said to not use Wikipedia AT ALL when researching countries. He was particularly adamant about it, so I asked him why and received the standard "anybody can edit it omg" from him. So I agree with this observation: these professors are the hydrophobic lipids to the water-like Wikipedia.

    They are... Wikiphobic!
     
    Wikipedia is an enciclopedia, and, as such, is not a primary source, but a secondary one. You shouldn't put it as a source for anything, but instead reference the sources wikipedia itself uses (the ones at the bottom of each article).

    To explain this, let's say that a primary source is anything that can be credited to a named author. Wikipedia cannot, and, as such, has to rely on those instead. That's why, the more references to other sources an entry has, the more reliable it is.
     
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    What Went said.
    That said, I nearly always use Wikipedia for my assessments and stuff (if applicable) in the intentions of getting an overview of the subject and to get my head around some simple concepts and stuff. Then again, I've never cited it because all the original sources are at the bottom of the page, so if you go to that article/book/website, and cite directly from the primary source, it totally looks better in your bibliography/citations. xP
     
    lol in my school teachers (not all, some xP) encourage us to use Wikipedia as a source. But they tell us not to just 'copypaste' everything but write our answers/whatever in our own words so that we can understand what we're writing. I will mostly (when I'm not sure of stuff) cross check with a bunch of other sites though, to check whether the info is right or not. Plus, as a source, Wikipedia sometimes offers information that is a bit too complicated for me, so I have to often take information from somewhere else anyways.
     
    Is it reliable? Mostly. It usually provides sources and those sources are usually good. I've seen some basic mistakes on smaller pages though so buyer beware.

    It is a good source? Not particularly. It would be better to do your own research in many cases otherwise you'll never learn how to do that and you'll only know how to Wikipedia and Google. Plus the more in-depth and scholarly you need your research to be the less helpful Wikipedia is because at its core it's just a topical source of basic information. Plus plus you can't be sure the sources it lists haven't been tailored to omit certain sides of a issue and so on. The information it contains could all be factual, but the specific lack of other bits of information on the same subject could make a world of difference.
     
    Our teacher asks us to avoid Wikipedia when citing sources. Why? She seems to think it's unreliable. I generally differ. Information posted on Wikipedia are closely moderated and checked upon editing a page, in addition to a reliable list of external references to cement the information. I never used it as a source in essays/responses, but as a mean in garnering quick information when needed.
     
    A professor of mine had said that while you can't use Wikipedia as a source, it's a good place to go to start your research. For example, if you were told to do a report on a topic you don't know anything about, then Wikipedia is a great place to get you started. But as for further research, it's basically what Scarf says. When you get later down the road, you'll have to do more than just reports about this person, or that time span. There will be analysis, and other forth things in which you'll have to cite information as back-up, but nothing you can find on wikipedia. If you become so used to using wikipedia and google as your sources, then you'll find yourself to have a lacking essay or report on your hands.
     
    Imo, the most useful part of Wikipedia articles is the source list at the bottom. Even if you don't trust the content of the articles to be accurate, the sources that the content was drawn from will be useful in your research. It's usually better to use an offline source than an online source of course, but if that's not possible, I don't see a problem with not using Wikipedia as a sort of source of sources.
     
    I have learnt a great deal of information all thanks to Wikipedia so I praise it really and it's still an every day use for me.
     
    [SIZE="a"]Everyone in my class says Wikipedia lies. NUH-UH! I use Wikipedia When I have to do reports. I even used it for my confirmation saint! Suckers....[/SIZE]
     
    It's good in the sense to give a brief outline, but if you're going there and then solely relying on wiki to give you the truth, then no. I browse it regularly, and I have seen many, many mistakes there. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not.

    It's most useful function, as others have said, is the source list at the bottom of the page.

    It is perfectly fine to mostly rely on Wikipedia if you're just at school; but if you're in college/university? No way, you can't afford to rely on Wiki if you want a good grade.

    I do, however, enjoy Wikinews. I find it to be far less biased than the BBC, and other major news providers. Same can be said for pages based on current events. If I want the latest info on a current event, Wiki's a good place to go to avoid political bias.
     
    Vendak said:
    It's good in the sense to give a brief outline, but if you're going there and then solely relying on wiki to give you the truth, then no. I browse it regularly, and I have seen many, many mistakes there. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not.

    It's most useful function, as others have said, is the source list at the bottom of the page.

    It is perfectly fine to mostly rely on Wikipedia if you're just at school; but if you're in college/university? No way, you can't afford to rely on Wiki if you want a good grade.

    I do, however, enjoy Wikinews. I find it to be far less biased than the BBC, and other major news providers. Same can be said for pages based on current events. If I want the latest info on a current event, Wiki's a good place to go to avoid political bias.
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    How fast does WikiNews come out? Is there a delay so that it's recheck and unbias?
     
    TRIFORCE89 said:

    How fast does WikiNews come out? Is there a delay so that it's recheck and unbias?
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    I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic or not.
    Unless you're witnessing the event yourself then you can never be sure there's no bias, you might as well say that to every form of news you read ever.
    Just in general, you will get less with Wiki.
     
    Just to slightly correct what some people have said: Wikipedia is a secondary source, yes, but the sources it cites at the bottom of each page are not necessarily primary sources. Primary sources are things like photographs, newspaper articles, diary entries and television news recordings from the time of an event, while a secondary source is anything that compiles and/or draws from those primary sources to form a conclusion. So the research papers that are often seen in the citation notes are usually secondary sources. One might even go so far as to call encyclopaedias like Wikipedia tertiary sources.
     
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