Friday, September 7, 2012

The Importance of Wikipedia


All through middle school and high school teachers always told me that Wikipedia was not a reliable source and that I should try to find other sources so I don’t only depend on Wikipedia.  Even though teachers told me that, they never said I couldn’t get the majority of my information from Wikipedia, so that is what I would do.  After Thursday’s class I now realize that the rest of my sources usually weren’t reliable either.  My other sources didn’t contain two of the three things that we were told to look for when determining if the source was reliable, the author and the date.  Even though my high school teacher probably didn’t really check my sources and they let me use Wikipedia while still giving me good grades, I have now realized the same tricks I used in high school will not fly in college.  But back to the topic of Wikipedia, it’s not considered to be a reliable source mainly because anyone can go on and change the information in the articles.  But contrary to most beliefs Wikipedia can be a very good source, if and only if used properly.  Most people, including myself, never ever think to use Wikipedia as a tertiary source (an index of primary and secondary sources), only to get a basic understanding of the subject they are researching.  But it class we learned that Wikipedia is actually a great tertiary source to find reliable sources, because at the bottom of every article there are a whole section of cited references.  So even though in college it is not recommend and most times prohibited to use Wikipedia as a secondary source, using it as a tertiary source can still get you and your research off to an excellent start by giving you a good number of reliable sources. 

4 comments:

  1. As you mentioned some people don't think to use Wikipedia as a source to get the base of their information, which is basically me. I never touch Wikipedia just because it was pounded into my brain that we could not use it. I do agree with you, however, that it would be a good place to start in order to get a little background information on the topic we are looking up.

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  2. I agree with your analysis that Wikipedia can be a great tertiary source. While I was always instructed not to use it, I believe that Wikipedia can be helpful in providing a general overview of a topic you are researching. Another point you brought up is teachers checking your resources. In high school, our teachers probably did not check our resources thoroughly. However, in college, our professors will be stricter about this. Therefore, this research class will prove to be very beneficial to us!

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  3. i know exactly what you mean about not caring what the teachers said and using wikipedia reguardless. I think its awesome that we can still use that site for atleast somethings because it is so convenient. i also didnt realize what websites were legit either. i never would have thought to look for an author of the site, i just figured that if its one of the first things to pop up on good it had to be good.

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  4. I used to always use Wikipedia even though teachers would tel me it's not a good source. It always worked for me too. Just like you said, my teachers never said anything about all the sources at the bottom that can be used. I learned that Wikipedia isn't a good primary source but a good way to find reliable sources.

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