How credible is wikipedia? [closed]
Closed by System on Apr 29, 2019 at 03:07
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I understand that this question relates more to wikipedia than it does writing but...
If I was going to use wikipedia for a source for a research project (for example) would the information be correct? I know that anyone can go on there and edit it, but the Internet has other invalid information that isn't on wikipedia. I'm thinking that over time as an article matures on wikipedia, it would have gone through a large amount of edits and be correct, but I could be wrong. The reason I want to use wikipedia is because all of the information is consolidated in one place with references.
I do believe that I should use google to search my information (which I do) and might come off as "lazy". This question may be closed because it is off-topic as well.
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From my own experience Wikipedia is very credible. In 2005 already it has been compared to Encyclopedia Brittanica I am always amazed when people start complaining about the quality of Wikipedia. The idea behind wikipedia is that it is managed by the community. If you find an error, just correct it. The success of wikipedia lies in the fact that people do edit.
Regarding using wikipedia as an original source. Don't! That is to stop reading and cite. A well written wikipedia article contains various citations to resources to backup the assumptions. Use these references. There is an example where a scientific journal even requires its authors to also submit their content to Wikipedia (http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.html).
My general recipe to find proper reference and get a brief introduction into a novel topic is:
- Read the Wikipedia article on the topic
- Follow references of this Wikipedia article and read these articles.
- Once I have some understanding on the topic I use a scientific literature search engine to fine additional references. Scholar is just one of these services, but depending on the topic there is Pubmed, ACM, and many others
- Browse social networks on citations like CiteULike and Connotea
So the main message would be yes, Wikipedia is credible, but like with the scientific literature don't take one source for granted and look for alternatives
just my 2cts
EDIT This might be an interesting read on this topic: http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941
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I think most of the answers here are missing something important. It is not about credibility (Wikipedia is as credible as most sources, which is to say that it contains a certain number of errors and omissions, just like everything else). It is about traceability. What matters when you cite a source in an academic paper is that you provide tracability for your assertions. Everything is supposed to be traceable back to the original research so that if someone has doubts about the assertions in support of your conclusions, they can trace it back to your original sources.
But Wikipedia, by its own rules, is not a source of original research. Every assertion in Wikipedia is itself supposed to be traceable back to the original research. So citing Wikipedia has no traceability value. It does not get the scholar any nearer to the original source of the information that you are asserting in support of your conclusions. That is why it is not appropriate to cite Wikipedia in an academic paper.
Outside of the academic world, there are generally no such traceability requirements and so citing wikipedia as a convenient source of additional information on a topic makes perfect sense.
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