Wikipedia definitely gets a bad rap. Even the popular media has mocked the user interactive website. Still, semester after semester, I have students tell me how much they love it -- even I occasionally uses it for quick reference. Sooooo, what do YOU think of Wikipedia?
What is its place in the research process? Does it even have a place at all? Why does it get such a bad rap? Do you use wikipedia? Post a comments are due by next Tuesday. 5-points for a well-developed comment, 10 points if it includes a strong piece of evidence (including a source citation).
What is its place in the research process? Does it even have a place at all? Why does it get such a bad rap? Do you use wikipedia? Post a comments are due by next Tuesday. 5-points for a well-developed comment, 10 points if it includes a strong piece of evidence (including a source citation).
44 comments:
Wikipedia is a fun non profit website that I personally go to so that I may find facts about non academic information, however I do not believe this website has any credibility in the academic research world due to how the website is put together. You can go to the websites information section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About) and see for yourself that the information is allowed to be put on the website by anyone that wishes to do so. While the website does go on to explain that they have editor "watchdogs" to help keep the website credible the ratio of website visitors to editors is nearly 850 to 1. The website has 91,000 editors at any given time, but almost 78 million visitors a month that are allowed to change, edit, or add any information they want at their own free will to the website. It is because of that main issue that I believe the website gets a bad wrap, and ultimately I agree with the bad wrap because there is just too much of an overwhelming amount of easy access to the website that can be construed.
Erica Taft
Wikipedia is a great website to use if you know absolutely nothing about whatever topic you are looking up. I use it to get a brief overview on topics I do not know much about or things I am just curious about. I do not think it should be used as a credible source because of the fact that it can be changed. This was proven when Daniel Tosh asked the viewers of his show to post information on Wikipedia.
(http://tosh.comedycentral.com/blog/2010/02/03/your-wikipedia-entries/) Although Wikipedia did lock the page it took them some time to do it. This is a good website to understand some topics, but it is always good to take into account that the information may be false. That is why you should always continue to search said topic to double-check your information.
Taylor Smith
I personally only use Wikipedia when I want to find a quick answer to a question. I personally would never use Wikipedia as a creditible source. One person can visit Wikipedia homepage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About) and clearly see that over 78 million people visit this search engine monthly and that there are about 91,000 active contributors that edit the articles daily. Wikipedia is an on-line copy left encyclopedia that is constantly evolving and can be edited by anyone. Hosted and supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, this open source resource is collaboratively created and maintained by thousands of users worldwide. Any article contributed to Wikipedia becomes free content that may be used, edited, copied and redistributed by users. All materials contributed to Wikipedia must be verifiable by other users. This website had a bad rap because all of the information can be altered at any given time which makes the information particularly biased. Therefore this website is not a creditable source and definitely has no place in the research process.
I believe Wikipedia is a great website to use for leisurely surfing the web to find not so important information. I may use it to look up a biography on a celebrity or story lines to my favorite T.V. show. Wikipedia is not based on factual information and can be altered at any time, so it definitely should not be used is any academic research. I think the website gets such a bad rep because anyone can go in and change the information. Over this past weekend after the grammy awards, best new artists winner Esperanza Spaulding's wikipedia page got blasted with horrible comments by Justin Beiber Fans. Her page has since been fixed, but it just goes to show you how anyone could post anything on Wikipedia.
http://gawker.com/#!5759473/bieber-fans-attack-esperanza-spaldings-wikipedia-page
Alyssa Hamilton
I think Wikipedia is a good website for looking up non-academic related topics. I know I use Wikipedia for looking up simple things, like information on a movie or an actor. Wikipedia can be edited or changed by anyone, therefore making it a hard source to rely on. Due to the fact that anyone can logon and change whatever they wish, it has an overabundance of bad information and shouldn’t be used for academic citations. In the source “The Good and the Bad of Wikipedia,” they mention “someone falsely implicated former Kennedy adviser John Seigenthaler, Sr. in the Kennedy assassinations.” This shows that anyone can change whatever they wish on the cite to make anything false.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/10/sunday/main2244008_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
I think Wikepedia is a good source when looking for information on an actor or actress, but not a good source when you are looking for academic information. Anyone can change information on anyone's website, making it a little hard to believe if the information you are reading is true. Wikepedia is seen as a bad source because anyone can change the information on the page, but I think it is ok when looking up someone's biography of a famous person or something about a television show. It should not be used on academic research by any means, and this website even shows you how you don't have to be a member to be able to change information on anyone's page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
Wikipedia is a good website for looking up information that is not academic related. Wikipedia can be changed by anyone at anytime, which makes it hard to believe if all the information your looking up is true. It is good for looking up information about actors or television shows, but not anything having to do with school research. Wikipedia has a bad reputation because people have been known to change information, especially on famous people, on a day to day basis. This website teaches you how you can change information on any website and become a "Wikipedia Editor," which shows that some information may be false that you are reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
Wikipedia is a website to rely on when you need to know a quick fact or common knowledge. Even if you want to know about something as simple as someone’s age, Wikipedia could provide false information. I do not believe Wikipedia is a good source of information because "it’s been shown that for less researched topics, the false information can remain online for extended periods of time." When searching for information don’t you want to learn about that topic? How can you know for sure that you didn't come across information on your topic when someone provided false knowledge on the website? There is no way for someone to know for sure if they are being provided with the correct information when they are clueless about the topic in the first place. I believe it only gets a bad rap because anyone can go online and edit different information.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Technology/Wikipedia.pg_01.html
Paul Kaneshige
Wikipedia can be a great website to find information on subjects that you are unfamiliar with. This being said, it should only be used to a certain point. When it comes to little things such as finding definitions or quick facts it can be a very useful source. On the other hand, using Wikipedia as your main place of research may not be the best choice. The information posted may be skewed from what the actual truth may be. If you use Wikipedia, it would be best for you to find other sources as well that back up the information you find. These other sources will help you find more facts about the topic and also will help you prove whether the information on Wikipedia is valid.
Leah Wingerter
In my opinion, Wikipedia is a website that can be extremely useful in finding out information that is not academically needed or cited. I find the website useful for starting out researching a topic. Just a starting point and then I go from there for more academic website. Wikipedia is good for an overview, but not for detailed information. Wikipedia can get a "bad rap" for having information posted that isn't true, and that is because anyone can go and post anything on a page. This is why the website is not academically sound.
Cody A. Medeiros
As Scott Tibbs says on his website,
"Wikipedia itself does not make mistakes. There is false information posted to Wikipedia, intentionally and unintentionally, but that false information is posted by Wikipedia's users."
(vhttp://www.sstibbs.com/scott/2010_archives/blog_2010_011.html )
I agree with him. Everyone knows that Wikipedia can be altered by anyone at anytime, but the problem is who alters the information and in what way. I think it is fair to say Wikipedia is a great informational site. One could go to Wikipedia and find credible and non-credible information about anything at any time. And to say just because anyone can alter Wikipedia does not mean people do. I agree people do and have, but how do we know exactly how many people are actually taking advantage of the power? I believe Wikipedia is credible only to certain subjects. I say this because people do put credible information on Wikipedia that does not get messed with. Therefore, as a whole, Wikipedia is only credible to certain situations and to decipher which are credible and non-credible is nearly impossible. So the lack of proof which information is good or not good makes the website seem bad, non-credible, and ultimately makes the editors of Wikipedia look bad.
Katherine Henderson
Wikipedia may have all the latest information on "Glee," but when it comes to the most basic element of research, source criticism, Wikipedia falls on its face. I believe that Wikipedia is a wonderful tool to help overall comprehension of a subject, and it provides a brief summary, which comes in handy for random Jeopardy moments. I think Wikipedia's function is not to be a catalog of credible information, so much as to be a place where people feel like they are involved in the process of making information available to the masses. Wikipedia's founder had a wonderful idea. Wikipedia is a site that functions beautifully with no problems during the planning stages on paper. But as with most ideas that attempt to change the world, they fail to take into account the less favorable parts of human nature. The part of a person who finds it funny to add misinformation to Wikipedia is what creates problems with the site, not the site's early premise.
http://whatisresearch.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/wikipedia-criticism-and-why-it-fails-to-matter/
Wikipedia can definitely help someone out in many cases. But most of the time the information on Wikipedia is garbage. People can get on it and put whatever they want to. A lot of the information in it may be true, but the fact that people can change information makes the website a little sketchy. I personally don't use Wikipedia for research purposes for the reason that the information i am getting may be completely b.s. The reason why it gets a bad rap is because it doesn't have 100% efficiency, and isn't always true.
Laura Lake
I think Wikipedia is great for finding quick facts or tidbits of information, and I often us it for that purpose. I do not use Wikipedia when I am doing a major research project or if I am searching for information that must be 100 percent factual. Wikipedia is always a quick and easy way to get information but it is not 100 percent reliable or factual. I do not ever cite Wikipedia as a source when I am compiling any kind of documentation or speech. Although most of the information seems to be true and it all sounds like it could very well be factual, there is a chance it may not be. It is also important to check other reliable sources after finding information on Wikipedia to make sure that what you are reading is true. According to Catrina Hamilton, "The single biggest pro going for Wikipedia is still the fact it is almost unlimited in the information it provides. It's even branched off into different Wiki-sites that specialize in more specific information"( http://www.helium.com/items/296508-the-pros-and-cons-of-wikipedia) I think Wikipedia is a great tool when used correctly, but like with anything in life, always check the source and the facts.
C. J. McCraney
Wikipedia can be used for subjects that you are trying to learn about. Anyone can post information on a variety of topics, they believe they know about. If the information they write about is not creditable, editors from the Wikipedia site will take it off or ask someone else to fix it. So Wikipedia is a not a suited to be used as a research site, for the information is not always creditable. But it is a great way to look up quick information you are trying to learn.
I believe that Wikipedia is a place where you can retrieve some background information on the topic you want to research. Yet I believe that you should not submit a paper using only information you've found from this site. I know from past events that if a professor sees that you have used Wikipedia in your bibliography they automatically take off points. This is probably due to the fact that anyone can sign into a page and change an article's information to what they feel is correct, that is also why it has such a bad rep. I personally use Wikipedia for background information only now and use it sometimes to help guide me in the right direction. Is Wikipedia trustworthy? "Yes,Wikipedia is trustworthy, because officials are constantly monitoring the site, editing any misinformation found."
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Wikipedia_trustworthy
-Brandon Early
Marisa Farris
Now don’t get me wrong, Wikipedia is very convenient and easy source. All of us take advantage of the tool and some might even add their input to the articles found. This could potentially be bad though. Technically, a person could go on Wikipedia and post any article that is full of false information. For an example, according to a Wikipedia spokeswoman, "Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources….” Does this stop us? Not really. In high school, Wikipedia was banned on our school computers. I feel that this was not necessary but I guess that’s what you get for going to a private school. Now, I personally use Wikipedia for a majority of my general information. Although its convenient, I tend to lean towards credited and peer viewed articles for my school projects.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki
Ragan Stone,
I myself have used wikipedia several times because it's simple and it has tons of information on one page. Even though it's very convenient the fact is that it's not reliable. An information website that can be edited by anyone is a bad idea especially dealing with events that happened in history. I get facts wrong all the time so I'm sure at least some of the information is faulty so it's just safer to assume that none of it can be trusted. To get reliable information for research you should really only trust books and journals and things that have been checked for accuracy. I'm not saying that wikipedia is completely awful, but when dealing with important facts it's probably best to stay clear of it.
Wikipedia is a very helpful site, for me. However, I would not suggest using it for research over school work because anyone can access the site so you do not know if what they are saying is credible or not. I am not saying wikipedia is not helpful, because it is, I am only saying do not use it as a credible source. Too be honest I use this site almost on a daily basis to look up actors or movies and it is a quick go to site for social information. But most people do not realize that this site is not trust worthy because a majority of the time it is the first site that pops up when you type something into the google. Therefore, because it is at the top it must be the best, that is not true but younger and even older people still believe this.
Alyssa Elkhay
Wikipedia is a good resource when you need to know a quick fact or a biography about a person. I personally use Wikipedia for both of these reasons. When you type something into Google the first thing to pop up on your topic is the source Wikipedia. When teachers tell you not to cite information from this cite it is way too tempting when that is the first thing to pop up. I believe it is okay to pull information off of Wikipedia if it is “common knowledge.” Most of the time one cannot be sure that they are being provided with true information. When searching for a topic, don’t you want to learn more about that certain subject? How can you be sure that you are receiving the best knowledge possible when anyone is able to edit the information posted on Wikipedia? “It’s been shown that for less researched topics, the false information can remain online for extended periods of time.” With this being said, how do you know that you didn’t research that topic when the false information was online? You don’t know, especially without having knowledge about that topic in the first place. I believe this is why Wikipedia receives such a bad rap.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Technology/Wikipedia.pg_01.html
Wikipedia is a site that is very helpful for general research and provides an abundance of information to students. With that said, it also can be seen as a discredited site because users of the site can post things that are possibly untrue. It is very useful when a student has no previous knowledge of the subject and Wikipedia can help them to understand the main facts of the subject. However, when finding finer details one should find their fact from a different source to make sure that they are 100% credible. I believe that as long as students use their correct judgment in finding their information that Wikipedia can be extremely helpful but it can also make the student sound ignorant if they use incorrect facts.
-Rob Bentley
Wikipedia can provide information to start a foundation that will be liable enough to build off of for any research. It helps give a general idea on any topic that will lead to the discovery of more specific and reliable information. Wikipedia's place in the research process is not very reliable only because it is accessed by anyone that wants to contribute. Many of those contributors to articles put a title as anonymous which then makes the information even more unreliable. I personally do not use Wikipedia because I find that Google is more in depth, informative and reliable with supported services. If Wikipedia eventually cancels the all access pass to anyone that enters their site, then it might become more in depth and reliable as other search engines are.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/180706/wikipedia_useful_information_or_unreliable.html
I feel teachers are justified in not allowing wikipedia to be used as a source, but it really shouldn't be as ostracized as it is by the academic community. Certainly it is not the place to cite if you are doing a high-level course paper, but if you are looking for general information it is not a bad place to look. Think of a wikipedia article as another student's paper- it's written by someone else and it uses sources, and the author is not necessarily reputable (which is why disallowing it as a resource is legitimate), but the paper (and the wikipedia article) shouldn't just be viewed as garbage because the author isn't reputable; the information in the paper or article should still be respected as legitimate information.
In my opinion, Wikipedia does have a small place in some research processes. If I need a jump start on some information that may be the first place I try simply to see what it says. Whether or not all of the information is correct can be determined by looking at other more reputable websites. We all know not everything on there is 100% true or it can be somewhat misrepresented on the website but it’s up to us to judge for ourselves. I feel like as students we shouldn’t use it to be a major source of information, especially for papers and speeches, but if its quick things related to our major or a person just to find some lead offs or even to jar our memory then it’s ok to be used.
-Jessica Moore
Personally, I love Wikipedia. I use it often whenever I need a quick reference to someone or something that I don't know much about. It's fast, easy and convenient when I need a definition or brief overview about something. However, it should not be used for professional purposes or research papers. I typed in "wikipedia" on Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) and it told me how the website works. Because almost all of the articles can be edited by anyone, it shouldn't be considered a legitimate reference. For general information, it is a useful tool in jump starting research. However, because no one with actual credibility is required to edit the articles, it can't always be trusted as a reliable source for research papers.
-Lizzy McCrary
I think Wikipedia is one of the greatest websites around. If you want to know anything and everything about something you can go straight to wikipedia. For the most part I believe that wikipedia is credible because a good majority of the articles on the website require some sort of verification before your allowed to update an article. Now it is true that you can post an article about anything but for it to actually be accredited and what not it needs sources and needs to be verified. Thomas Chesney discusses an experiment with wikipedia in which it is found that only "thirteen percent of the articles contain mistakes." there are so many articles on wikipedia that thirteen percent while it is a big number doesn't seem that big compared to all the articles. Wikipedia is becoming more and more credible everyday.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/1413/1331
-Chris Hussein
Wikipedia has helped me throughout my school. I began using it for research papers when i was in grade school and thought nothing about it possibly giving me incorrect information. It is perfect for looking up little pieces of information so you don't have to search through thousands of adds that are irrelivent. There are times when Wikipedia should and should not be used though that I have learned throughout the years. When working on a research paper this is not something that I should go to for facts. People can put whatever they want on this site without having to put it thought some factual scanner. Things on Wikipedia have no way of being checked so half the infrmation could be true while the other half is completely made up. The website google uses, Knol, a new Wikipedia like site that actually has individual pages that creator of a page can "own" it, approving and rejecting other people's edits. This is something Wikipedia needs so information can be called out by experts. I dont think wikipedia will never be destroyed but it needs a little fixing up before people should start using it for research and other knowledgeable reasons.
Allen Ford
Wikipedia is a great site to get a general idea of a topic or subject in my opinion. It usually gives a history of whatever topic you are researching and can most of the time be considered accurate information. However, we all know anyone can post whatever they want on any topic on wiki, so therefore it has a bad reputation and is considered by some non-reliable. In high school, I wrote a paper on Medical Marijuana and the truth about the harmful effects marijuana has on the human body. In my research I found people that argue that marijuana has become so potent by new growing methods ie "hydroponics", that it has the potential to cause schitzophrenia. However if you asked wiki how potent marijuana it would tell you, "The UNODC states that marijuana often contains 5% THC content." However, dispensary's in California today offer marijuana with 15-30% THC! Obviously wiki isn't the best source for information compared to .edu or .gov web sites, but i use it and think it is a great started to get simple information and get a general idea of a topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana
For research purposes wikipedia is used to look up quick information and to give you a quick look at what you are going to be researching about because not all the information on the website is accurate. I think that wikipedia has a major place in the technology world many people use it for research and to help them look up miscellanous information. I think that wikipedia gets such a bad rap because the information posted on the website can be bias at times and may not be accuarate due to the fact that anyone can post what they want on the site. I use wikipedia in some of my research before I get started just to get a quick background or a little fact on what I am researching. Even though it may not be the most reliable source wikipedia is very helpful and should not have the awful rap that it does today.
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