“Remember, since you’re doing an academic writing especially on research, you are not allowed to use Wikipedia as one of your citation or references!” Have you ever heard those sentences? Yes! I guarantee that if you’re a scholars or learners that sentence is familiar. Then , what’s wrong with Wikipedia? Why it is restricted or discredited?
Long time ago, BW (Before Wikipedia), most people either went to the library or collected expensive hardbound copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica. On January 15, 2001, Jimmy Walles and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia officially. The two were working on an online encyclopedia using only expert-written articles called Nupedia, and found the process to be extremely slow. One of the employees on the encyclopedia suggested using the new wiki technology to create a “feeder” of information to the project. Soon the wiki articles overtook the Nupedia work. Then, Wales and Sanger decided to create Wikipedia to distinguish between the expert-written Nupedia and the open sourced, public driven, collaborative edited Wikipedia. Since its inception, the question of whether the site is a reliable resource or not has been debated. Therefore, since it is debatable, some of college and university choose to warn students not to use Wikipedia as a reference or citation.
Moreover, as Wikipedia uses a collaborative editing process, questions of the sites reliability will be raised. Nonetheless, the site continues to grow. Again, according to their own website, Wikipedia has now more than “15 million freely useable articles in over two hundred languages worldwide, and content from a million registered user accounts and countless anonymous contributors.” As of the date of the publication of this article, Wikipedia has now more than 3.333 million English language articles. And as the site grows, attitudes toward the reliable and usefulness of the encyclopedia has changed. In 2007, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article written by Cathy Davidson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and English at Duke University, in which she asserts that Wikipedia should be used to teach students about the concepts of reliability and credibility.
It could be argued that by Wikipedia highlighting the above articles they are guilty of self-referencing. Nonetheless, there is a general consensus forming on to how one should use Wikipedia as a resource. Most educators agree, Wikipedia can be an extremely useful tool. However, when reading Wikipedia, one should always check the sources cited in the article. Wikipedia articles are useful in providing general background on the subject you are studying. Moreover, as you can see when you’re looking for some information in the search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing, you’ll find that Wikipedia is positioned in the first line, on the top of the search result, for almost every kind of information! Wikipedia is affordable resources.
And so, in regards to Wikipedia’s reliability, it can be argued that the site is reliable in providing researchers and students a guiding light, or a “starting point,” into the subject. But, because of its collaborative editing process, Wikipedia should not be considered a carefully vetted source, unless you are writing about the Wikipedia (organization) itself. Then, directly quoting the site and its founders just might be appropriate. After all, who would know the history of Wikipedia better than Wikipedia? :D
However wikipedia is good to use for establishing first knowledge before go to another sites. it is because wiki has a large information in one place. I still use it although after hearing that forbiden statement. However it doesn't mean that only stuck on this website, try finding more information in other web.
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