Why do people feel that Wikipedia is a legitimate source of information?

Question

Go to a university and start sourcing wikipedia and you'll have a one-way ticket out of there pretty quickly

Legitimate Source:

Scholarly Books
Scholarly Journals
Primary Sources

etc.

Not something that Joe Nobody can go to and start putting in whatever he wants

Answer 1

As professor anyone who uses Wikipedia as a source for one of my papers, either does the paper over or gets an "F".

Answer 2

People who automatically reject Wikipedia information are doing themselves (and their students, if any) a great disservice.

Of course it is true that Wikipedia accepts edits from anyone, but it is also true that most significant topics are constantly viewed by hundreds if not thousands of knowledgeable readers who edit out egregious mistakes as fast as they are entered. I am a legitimate academic expert on several areas and I routinely check Wikipedia to see what they say... nearly always the information is complete, detailed, accurate and very fair - which many encyclopedias and supposedly reliable academic sources are not! A lot of encyclopedia articles are written by a single person who may have powerful biases and be subject to censorship by the publishers.
Wikipedia is, in general, a very reliable and useful source. I don't think there is any printed or proprietary encyclopedia that is equally useful. It is, and ought to be, the way of the future.

Answer 3

People feel Wiki is a "legitimate" news source because they are lazy. Plain and simple.
Why spend hours reading books and sourceing research papers, or heck even a real encyclopedia.. when you can just click a few times in Wiki.
I think Wiki is great, they have a solid idea and help millions of people share and learn.. But I would never site them in a paper.
Anyone who Sites Wiki deserves an F, then they can host their own Wiki Page.

"Why Wiki is not a siteable resource"

Answer 4

No encyclopedia is a valid source, actually. They are all subject to error and bias.

Wikipedia is supposed to be better because errors can be corrected quickly. Because there are thousands of editors instead of a dozen.

However, it's also true that this can lead to joksters.

A source is valid as long as (a) you cite it and (b) can defend, within reasonable bounds, its reliability.

Remember, wikipedia cites it's sources. Print encyclopedias do not always do that. This puts wikipedia is a BETTER class as far as requirement (b) goes.

Answer 5

particular, that is wher the subjective component of track listening is accessible in. that is even worse once you study the overview, and you will tell that the reviewer is conscious little or no with reference to the track being reviewed (this occurs usually while non-steel reviewers overview steel albums). One particularly that I disagreed with became into the place Blender reviewed Meshuggah's maximum up-to-date album, and criticized it for no longer being catchy adequate (that is Meshuggah, goddamnit!), then went directly to speak approximately their polyrhythmic concepts-set the place the reviewer made it extremely obvious they had no theory what a polyrhythm is (this actual album is unquestionably much less polyrhythmic than previous Meshuggah albums). by ability of the top of the overview, it became into particularly sparkling that the reviewer became into only writing it after a runthrough of the album, and in all probability skimming over the band's wikipedia article, incredibly than truthfully utilising some musical wisdom. edit: additionally, a super sort of the approach is in line with hype and attractiveness. as sturdy as many human beings seeem to think of that that's, i locate it stressful to have self assurance that virtually each booklet in the industry got here to the self sustaining end that Animal Collective's new album became into the better of the 300 and sixty 5 days. i'm no longer attempting to declare something damaging approximately this album, i'm only saying that i think of the hype that got here with it prompted most of the reviewers. same with the hot Baroness album. It became into sturdy (i'd even say super), yet i think of many courses gave it a extreme score because of the fact it became into Baroness, no longer because of the album.

Answer 6

There's no warranty given at wikipedia, it's free information. like an old man said long ago,,, you can't believe everything you read.

Answer 7

Maybe because it is easy to find information and they're too lazy to actually find factual research?

Answer 8

WELL WHAT IS THE LEGIMATE SOURCE??!