Wikipedia is a free, multilingual, open content encyclopedia operated by the non-profit Wikipedia Foundation. Wikipedia is a combination of two words; wiki which is a technology for creating collaborative websites and encyclopedia. Wikipedia articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Nearly all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website.
Wikipedia was founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales and formally launched on January 15, 2001. It started as a complementary project for Nupedia. Nupedia was a free online English language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. By the end of 2001, Wikipedia grew to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions. Wikipedia became the largest encyclopedia when it passed the two million article mark in September 2007. Wikipedia is known as an online source of breaking news which is constantly updated. Wikipedia was the first particular “Web 2.0” service. It was followed by “YouTube” and “MySpace.”
Wikipedia has been targeted by critics for its systemic bias, inconsistencies, and its policy for favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. It has also been criticized for be susceptible to vandalism as well as unverified information. Encyclopedia Britannica undergoes formal peer review process. No article in Wikipedia undergoes formal peer-review process and changes to articles are made available immediately. No article is owned by its creator or any other editor. Wikipedia “makes no guarantee of validity” of its content. Wikipedia does not censor itself, and it contains materials that some people, including Wikipedia editors, may find objectionable, offensive or pornographic. In 2008, Wikipedia rejected an online petition against the inclusion of Muhammad’s depictions in its English edition, citing this policy. The presence of politically sensitive materials in Wikipedia had led China to block its access to parts of the site.
In a September 8, 2008 article entitled “The Pros and Cons of Wikipedia” written by staff writer, Nathaniel West, of the Journal Gazette/Times Courier online edition of jg-tc online which serves Mattoon, Illinois, it is reported that Wikipedia is a notorious culprit of being a seemingly reliable site that continues to muddy the waters with sometimes questionable facts. They contend that Wikipedia’s content can be submitted and edited by users who are not always qualified or objective. “And the temptation to abandon the long quest for multiple, accurate sources and settle down in a monogamous relationship with Wikipedia can prove almost overwhelming – espeically to the busy college student.” An English instructor at Lake Land College said that Wikipedia is a good place for students to behin understanding a topic. Many teachers at Lack Lane prohibit students from citing Wikipedia as a source. They say that it is a quick shop to get background information afer which the student should do in-depth research. A history instruction at Lake Land assigns projects in which the students are required to use Wikipedia, but not for the reasons you would think. He said, “the assignment calls for students to compare the coverage of particular topics in the textbook with Wikipedia.” Wikipedia can be useful to and lead the reader to reliable sources. Instructors overall believe Wikipedia’s flaws are not necessarily enough to undermine the whole enterprise. It can be a valuable source of background information, but it is not the final source for academic writing.
Thomas Chesney, a Lecturer in Information Systems at the Nottingham University Business School, published the results of his own Wikipedia study in the November 20, 2006 edition of the online journal First Monday, and he came up the conclusion that experts rate the articles more highly than do non-experts.
Chesney had 55 graduate students and research assistants examine one Wikipedia article apiece. Each participant was randomly placed into one of two groups: group one read articles that were in their field of study, while group two read randomly-assigned articles. Respondents were asked to identify any errors that they found. Those in the expert group ranked their articles as generally credible, higher than those evaluated by the non-experts. Chesney did not expect these results but had a possible explanation: “It may be the case that non-experts are more cynical about information outside of their field and the difference comes from a natural reaction to rate unfamiliar articles as being less credible.”
Whatever the reason for the results, Chesney urges caution in extrapolating too generally from his study. For one thing, the sample size was small. For another, 13 percent of those in the “experts” group reported finding mistakes in their assigned articles.
Whether this is better or worse than traditional, expert-based encyclopedias depends on who you ask. Nature did a highly-publicized comparative study between Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica in 2005 in which they found that the two were similar in terms of accuracy. Britannica disputed those findings and still claims to offer a more reliable product.
Chesney’s study was not intended to settle the debate. He states that, “whatever Wikipedia’s comparative accuracy, plenty of people (academics included) are using it, and he simply wanted to see whether Wikipedia could be considered accurate enough to be worth using”. His study suggests that it can, but that caution and further research needs to be used before citing anything learned from Wikipedia as a fact.
I do not believe that Wikipedia is a credible “sole” source for research. I believe it can provide good background information. I am currently taking a legal research class. In legal research, I have learned that you use legal encyclopedias for background information only, not as a primary source of research. This is a good rule for any type of research using any type of encyclopedia. As for the content of Wikipedia’s versus the content of a traditional encyclopedia, I believe, given the facts above, I will continue to use Wikipedia, but I will use it only for background information and will back it up with further research.
Wikipedia – from Wikipedia itself
WikipediaThe Pros and Cons of Wikipedia
I did not know much about Wikipedia before reading your post. From the information giving I think the Chesney’s study says it all. Wikipedia should only be used for background information. If the contents were not screened how would anyone know the information giving is accurate without doing further research. I do not think this is a reliable source by itself. Just because the Britannica and Wikipedia have similar errors I think Britannica has the upper hand because it has the formal peer review every time information is added.
I’m surprised to find out that Wikipedia turned out as reliable as it did. Several of my previous professors made Wikipedia out to be a horrible, mind-destroying website.
Even more surprising was the fact that encyclopedias in general shouldn’t be used as the concrete research, but only as a jumping point.
I regularly use Wikipedia to find basic information about a subject. I’m usually very sceptacle
Sorry for the last comment, I was highlighting and accidentally hit “Submit”
I was saying:
I’m usually very skeptical of information found in Wikipedia, but I often find better sources from the Notes, References, and Links portion of the articles.
When information is backed by a legitimate source, I will go straight to the source, and I usually discard anything I find on Wikipedia that does not have a reference.