Is Wikipedia a reliable source of information?

Question

Would you use it for assignments, coursworks, dissertations and other important papers?

Answer 1

I use it as a starting point, but there are lots of inaccuracies, mistakes and false information traps put in there.

Answer 2

Wikipedia is reliable as a beginning for research. Every good Wikipedia article cites a list of sources that are supposed to have more detail about the claims. Wikipedia also has far more diverse viewpoints than just about any other source.

You have to evaluate statements by their factual nature, not by who the source is. The New York Times published a propaganda piece glorifying the Soviet Union back in the 30s and never retracted it. It even got a Pulitzer Prize. The mainstream media still haven't retracted their smears of the Duke Lacrosse players declared innocent by the North Carolina Attorney General. Wikipedia does a better job of fixing errors when they are exposed than the media does. Don't trust everything you read in a so-called "reliable source."

Wikipedia can provide a good list of sources to get information from. However, you also should look at the editing history and talk page because Wikipedia is known for censoring points of view out of articles at times (such as the Global Warming article, which fails to include the solar global warming theory and which uncritically uses the discredited hockey stick graph).

Answer 3

Yeah. It's the most reliable resource. Even though it can be edited by anyone most likely the problems will be caught be the staff of wikipedia. They had a segment on Fox News a while back and this was an issue. Anything you would use for school is used a lot and inconsistencies would be caught quickly. Also you can double check the information by checking out other websites just to make sure.

Aslo it is said that some of the articles are bias. They have bias buttons on their websites so that if enough people think it is bias they will change the article.

Answer 4

99.9% of it is accurate; it's a complete myth that Wikipedia is unreliable or biased. There have been articles in a number of reputable newspapers, such as the Times and Guardian, (opinionted articles might I point out, where's their validity?) and people who've never been on Wikipedia and know nothing about it believe it now. Compare a Wikipedia article with the average textbook and you will find little difference. Often the people handling the most sensitive or complex articles are experts. However people cannot edit and have their information accepted as reliable by saying they're qualified! Everything must be referenced by an external, reliable source. As an educational resource it is definately reccommendable - the majority of vandalism actually occurs on more obscure articles, is painfully obvious and is hastily deleted.

Obviously for work such as that you may want to use a more specific website, Wikipedia's just an encyclopedia that you can count on for the basic facts and definitions. You'd be surprised how quickly it is updated and how quickly vandalism is stamped out.

The main flaw in Wikipedia is the lack of body to some articles. You can identify these pages by the 'stub' template at the bottom of the page/ If you want to help and feel confident in your writing ability then you should contribute. Familiarise yourself with the markup, elaborate on articles you think are a little thin and bulk up articles on passions of yours, as you'll write better about them. Even if there's one sentence you think is relevent, please add it. Spelling mistakes are usually a result of typos and grammatical mistakes are even rarer, but again, if you identify one, please edit the page.

Here's my own user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yohan_euan_o4 If you go on to my discussion page there's a template concerning Wikipedia and people who've told me when I've slipped up. I've made thousands of edits, which you can't see there. As for the articles I've written - they're acceptable, but I'm not happy with them, which can only be a good thing, right? I consider myself to a good writer who lacks confidence; my article on cow towns will be much more extensive anyway.

N.B. For people who do find innacuracies, original reseach or inconsistencies: do something about it. You don't even need an account to edit a page or chalk up the error on the discussion page (top of the page). However, if you do not verify your information, it will be quickly deleted, as is common practice on Wikipedia :)

In reply to LorenzoAE: that is one source. The points brought up are good but the overall message is pedantic. The majority of sources would say George Washington was the first president, this is rarely disputed. You have one source, and however credible it is, there are a lot more sources that conflict with it. ALL encyclopedias state George Washington to be the first, not just Wikipedia. It is not an encyclopedia's place to carry out original research or fly in the face the view held by most people or based on the views of experts. And although your example was used merely as an example - I found a page you might enjoy reading - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson_%28myths%29

Oh and Wiki = free website that anyone can edit.
'Wikipedia' is a pormanteau of wiki and encyclopedia. So obviously anyone can edit it.

Answer 5

Wikipedia is a reliable source of information. We used Wikipedia as resources in searching for a specific topic on the internet. You can use it also for your assignment and important papers.

Answer 6

For a dissertation? definitely not (unless you are like me and are doing a phd on the quality of Wikipedia articles! :) ).

Traditional scholarship frowns on it obviously.

But let's assume you are not interested in what tradition says, and just want to know whether you can generally trust the information (nothing is 100% accurate anyway!)

A fairly old Nature study sampled 42 sampled wikipedia articles and Britannica and found that the number of errors in both was comparable (though Wikipedia had slightly higher number of errors).

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html

The problem with wikipedia articles is that some articles are really top notch and some are really poor, and it is hard to tell the difference.

There is quite a lot of research done on trying to see if there is someway to automatically determine if an article is likely to be high quality or not, by looking at number of edits in the article, number of editors , number of incoming links etc, but it's obviously not an exact science.

Featured articles in wikipedia make up less than 1% of the total articles, and they are generally high quality.

But even then you have to be careful....

In general

Answer 7

I would think most American’s would think the following line to be accurate:

1. “George Washington was the first President.”

If you saw that in wikipedia, it would seem to be a valid statement, and you might accept it as fact. It is true, isn’t it?

Well, no, it really isn’t true, and someone editing a wikipedia document might find a subtle error, and correct it.

You see, the line says that George Washington was the first President, not that:

2. “George Washington was the first President of the US.”

That second line is more accurate.

The problem is with the word “President.” A company, a trust, an organization, a society, a Masonic lodge, or any other organization might have a President. George Washington wasn’t the first person ever to be endowed with the title “President.”

If line one were posted in wikipedia, someone might edit it to read like line two.

But line 2 isn’t accurate either.

Someone might realize there is no country on earth that has the name “US.” The name of the Country of which George Washington served as the President is, “The United States of America.” That is more accurate still.

So, the line should read:

3. “George Washington served as the first President of the United States of America.”

Are you happy with that? Oops.

Someone might come along and say, “but wait, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), until the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America (March 4, 1789), there were other Presidents who served under the “Articles of Confederation.” Article IX of the Articles of Confederation specifically called for the election of a President. John Hanson, of Maryland, was elected the first President. The Articles of Confederation (Article I) called the new nation “The United States of America.” That would mean that John Hanson was the first President of the United States of America. How can we fix that quandary?

4. “George Washington served as the first President of the United States of America under the Constitution.”

(The Articles of Confederation only allowed a President to serve a one-year term during any three-year period, so Hanson only served from November 5, 1781 until November 3, 1782. He was the first President to serve a full term after the full ratification of the Articles of Confederation. Six other presidents were elected after him - Elias Boudinot (1783), Thomas Mifflin (1784), Richard Henry Lee (1785), Nathan Gorman (1786), Arthur St. Clair (1787), and Cyrus Griffin (1788) - all prior to Washington taking office.)

George Washington was definitely not the first President. He wasn’t even the first President of the United States of America. He was the first President of the United States of America under the Constitution we follow today.

But, it sure is easier to say, “George Washington was the first President.”

This is precisely why wikipedia works: It is open for anyone to make corrections to it. This is also precisely why wikipedia is subject to failing. If you read the following line in wikipedia, wouldn’t you like to correct it?

“George Washington was the eighth President of the United States.”

Yes, you would want to correct it. You’d know that wasn’t correct. Everybody knows that wasn’t correct (don’t they?) Even though, as worded, it is precisely correct!

So, can wikipedia be wrong? Of course. Can it be corrected? Yes, you can edit it. Will you be making it more correct, or more wrong though? That, my friends, is why it is tough to edit wikipedia accurately, or to rely on it completely. It changes, it is fluid, and it may or may not be right—depending on how good “we the people” are at editing it.
And finally, since it is open to changes, it is possible for someone to come along and completely abuse their trust as an editor too, and change the first line to read, “George Washington was a traitor; a slave-holding killer, who led the colonials in a rebellion against their proper authority.” That sentence might be right too, but it doesn’t serve the interests of the public—it just vents someone’s aggression.

So when using wikipedia as a source, realize that any “open source” document makes a poor reference.

Don't use it on a "serious" report. Do use it as a place to learn from. Often, it will give the references for it's claims too. Those references may be better sources. (May be--but watch for political "tainting.")

Answer 8

It's a good place to check for information, but not for important papers. Where I went to school, papers submitted with Wikipedia cited as the source would be discredited, i think it's the same with some universities.

Answer 9

I personnaly does use it as a source of information. Not much for the actual text, wich is still very interresting to get a basic understanding of the topic, but more for the "external links" section of the article you're reading to validate the content. [IT is capital that you always validate the text through those links]

Also, it is important to NEVER use wikipedia in the source section of any important papers, instead use the "external links".

Answer 10

No, anyone can add anything to Wikipedia. They could even make up a name and pretend they have a doctorate!

My school banned the use of Wikipedia from any use on projects; it is just completely unreliable.

I have found false information on articles before. Use a source with a URL ending in .org, .gov, -or- .edu

Answer 11

No lol its not valid because people always edit their own things on the pages and sure they get caught but they only check every document for un-authorized information every 2 days.
So you could be copying information that someone has messed with like on george bush Wikipedia some edited the page and said he was gay, lolz.