When it comes time to write a paper most professors will deliver
the obligatory “you may not use Wikipedia as a source” speech. Their rationale
seems quite sound. It is written and edited by users and has not been peer
reviewed. Sure, I agree with that. You should definitely not put your trust in
Wikipedia’s accuracy and cite it as a source on an academic paper. But does
that mean you should avoid Wikipedia altogether? I say no.
A Wikipedia page could be written and edited by anyone,
true. But that also means that anyone can catch and correct inaccuracies, and
they most certainly do. Many Wikipedia users are the self-appointed sheriffs of
the internet. When he was a bored teenager, my friend Ben added a section to Freddie
Mercury’s entry discussing his career as an interstellar crime fighter. It
didn’t last an hour.
While Wikipedia doesn’t carry the weight of a peer
reviewed, scholarly article, it is accurate enough to give you a fair taste of
a subject you aren’t very familiar with. What’s more, the average Wikipedia
page cites the peer reviewed scholarly articles they got their information
from. Now those articles you can cite! Considering many such articles use
complicated terminology that the uninitiated would have trouble understanding,
you’ll be happy you got that quick and dirty lesson from the Wikipedia page
before you started reading it.
Wikipedia should never be used as a scholarly source.
However, it is an excellent place to start looking for them.
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