Let me first start off by saying the old days of Wikipedia not being a credible source are long gone. I don't care what your high school teachers told you, they're all liars. They had you convinced that Christopher Columbus discovered America and you see how that turned out. With that being said I remember writing short essays for classes and having to use a few internet resources to prove my information credible. Finding the right information for my essay was always easy because Wikipedia was notorious for having the goods. The hard part however, was looking for random websites that generally presented the same information that I used in my actual essay. With that being said I never once had any teacher say that my information wasn't credible which means that the information isn't necessarily wrong. It's just too easy to find and if everyone used Wikipedia all essays would generally be the same.
Personally I only use Wikipedia as a tool to verify or find quick information of the most random things. Don't act like you've never done the same thing. Especially when you get in your "let's be a creeper" type of mood, looking up when and where Zac Efron was born so you can resolve your high school musical fetish. I tend to look up Hollywood actors and actresses from old tv shows that I grew up watching mainly to verify ages and to learn more about their careers, personally lives, and siblings.
So is Wikipedia creditable? Yes! Should you use it for essays and other school things? Yes, but don't get caught. If you're using turnitin.com pray over your essay and say like 20 hail mary's and you should be in the clear of plagiarism.
Wikipedia has this very by the people, for the people attitude. Anyone can go on Wikipedia and make edits or changes to a page. However, those changes are not published until they go through review. There are people that literally just sit and filter through Wikipedia edits to check the reliability. If something unreliable does get on a particular page, people can flag it. It makes people feel like that have a part of something, when in fact they really don't; kind of like our voting system. So in some cases, like looking up facts on Justin Bieber, or random definitions, yes, Wikipedia is a reliable source. For looking up information on Perelman's arguments on rhetoric, Wikipedia is probably not the place to go. But if you had no clue who Perelman was or what rhetoric is, then Wikipedia is a good place to go to get some basic information. Wikipedia is like the stepping stone to other sources.I do not think Wikipedia should be used as a reliable source for developing arguments in essays and debates. But using Wikipedia to understand the basics before getting into the more complex information is where Wikipedia is a credible source.
ReplyDeleteAgree with the majority of the thinking here. I feel as if, many Wikipedia users aren't familiar with the verification process and how truthful it really is. As mentioned in a previous comment, "truth" is just really pruning an opinion - the more people who verify the claim, the more truthful it becomes. As such, Wikipedia should be a credible source because of the verification process.
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