It's usually pretty accurate the only thing is than anyone can go in and mess with it that's why it's looked on as a non credible source.
Wikipedia's Accuracy
- Thread starter oppp7
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It's quite accurate when it comes to a lot of things. However, it's a bad idea to allow any freely editable documents as sources.
Of course, considering that many pages in wikipedia provide actual legitimate sources, it never hurts to look stuff up on wikipedia just to get a general idea of it and perhaps get a few sources that are included there.
Of course, considering that many pages in wikipedia provide actual legitimate sources, it never hurts to look stuff up on wikipedia just to get a general idea of it and perhaps get a few sources that are included there.
That. A friend I have even once said that his teacher told him that they can't use wikipedia, but they can use the sources that wikipedia used...Furburt said:
It's accurate to a certain degree. I wasn't allowed to use it as a source for any of my projects for school this year but it's alright. I've gotten worse information from other sites before like Starcraft 2 was cancelled or Obama has legalised pot...oh wait, I think I got that one from THIS site.
Wikipedia isn't a credible source, but it's a very fast hotlink to credible sources. Citations are fantastic, they do all the legwork for you. So yeah, in that respect, if you check the citations you'll never get suckered.
Wikipedia is very accurate, but it's can't be a trusted academic source because there's no guarantee it was edited by an academic. It's perfectly useful as an overview and often links to academic sources anyway, though, so it's still a perfectly valid tool to use in essay writing or whatever.
It's not a valid source for anything more than idle curiosity, and getting a vague overview on a subject. This of course varies from topic to topic, with some being far more accurate and in depth than others, but on the whole for anything more important or deep than a bar-room discussion of "I wonder what was about?".oppp7 said:
If I remember correctly there was a really good quote about Wikipedia that's appropriate for this question. To paraphrase, "The people who need Wikipedia don't have enough knowledge to accurately judge the information they're reading; the people who have the knowledge to accurately update Wikipedia don't have the time to".
There was actually a study carried out by my University whilst I was there over the reliability of Wikipedia (admittedly a completely different department) which was interesting in showing an "acceptable" level of accuracy in Wikipedia.
Besides the "accuracy" of Wikipedia, the main reason for centres of education not deeming "Wikipedia" as a valid reference - especially for scientific matters is that it's a tertiary source of information, more often than not being quotes of quotes of data obtained elsewhere. Alot of meaning can be lost unintentionally because of this - that and it's an important skill in academia in being able to deal with source materials (whether scientific results, mathematical equations or Shakespearian prose) without the need for someone to "paraphrase" it into a form you are more comfortable with, to keep the information "pure" and unbaised.
It's about as accurate as any other encyclopedia out there. Probably something like 85%, bu don't quote me on that.
I used to use Wikipedia all the time, but now I'm at University, and they basically open all criteria with a massive [NO WIKIPEDIA AS REFERENCE].
So I don't use it anymore, apart from personal browsing
Do I trust it? Yeah, as much as I trust all other websites...
So I don't use it anymore, apart from personal browsing
Do I trust it? Yeah, as much as I trust all other websites...
Wikipedia is about as accurate as most other secondary sources. It's just that Wikipidia's shortcomings are better documented. Other sources are just as flawed, they just feel more reliable because there paper. Sure, Wikipedia has vandalism, but most of these instances of vandalism are obviously so. Vandalism will rarely lead someone astray, because you can probably figure out that the Pope isn't actually an interstellar crocodile, and faulty edits are usually taken down with incredible speed. The point is that you should trust sources which are as primary as possible. Of course, you can most certainly use Wikipedia to jog your memory, or find a good overview of the material before you hunt down the sources behind the article. It may not be a source in and of itself in an academic setting, but it is still a very useful tool.
What s/he said, and what everyone seems to be saying.Milney said:
Wikipedia is okay for just finding out about stuff generally but some of the more specific/specialist articles can have mistakes in them. These articles are probably not going to be under as much scrutiny as more popular pages and so mistakes go unchecked.
As was said, the subject's specialists who could spot the error are not likely to go onto the page to see the error because they know the subject. Also, people who might spot the error could think that they are one's mistaken and thus it is again, not corrected.
The references are useful for finding hard to find research articles though ^_^ In that capacity it's more like an ideas exchange then an information hub....
The fact that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone has very little to do with it. As others have said in this thread, it's about as reliable as any other source. It frustrates me when people quote Wikipedia in support of some argument in a forum like this one, then someone comes along who disagrees but has no counter-argument and says "oh, Wikipedia, what a good source" with generous helpings of sarcasm. It's an internet forum FFS, not the Journal of Electronically Transmitted Memetic Studies (although that would be awesome).
Of course for serious work you should refer to the references of any article (articles in journals and news media can be wrong/misleading too). Proper journalists are required to always have at least two reliable, corrobarative sources for anything that they present as a statement of fact.
Of course for serious work you should refer to the references of any article (articles in journals and news media can be wrong/misleading too). Proper journalists are required to always have at least two reliable, corrobarative sources for anything that they present as a statement of fact.
It's really accurate but there's the occasional ass that edits the stuff into being funny say Ben Franklin is known for being a total badass and won the Nobel prize for mustache but their admin team bans them and fixes it sooner or later.