Hello Fp, I just had a huge argument with my history teacher, about wikipedia as a trustworthy source of information.
I now wonder if there is any smart person out there, that could help me out a little bit here, is the site trustworthy or is it not?
I personally think it is, i may be wrong, but wikipedia's new method of blocking non-usefull information is great...
If Wikipedia is not trustworthy, how can other sites be? On the other sites a dude may be sitting and writing crap too...
I'm Danish, so dont flame for my grammar fails and non correct language...
All of my teacher's tell their students Wikipedia isn't trust worthy simply because they don't want us to copy and paste their information. They also want us to use different website sources.
But I'm pretty sure Wikipedia is one of the most reliable sites out there.
teachers think wikipedia is unreliable because anyone can edit it and therefore in their eyes it's all fake
Universities call it the W-word, at least the one I visited.
[QUOTE=daugaard1;32054674]If Wikipedia is not trustworthy, how can other sites be? On the other sites a dude may be sitting and writing crap too...[/QUOTE]
I have to agree with this part. A lot of teachers seem to have the attitude that any information from Wikipedia is unusable but some random person's website is a pristine source of information that can be trusted.
Sure, Wikipedia can and does have wrong information on it but generally I find it to be accurate and well-researched.
teachers they say that so people dont go there
Tell them that Wikipedia cites sources. ALWAYS. The little number that is on every page after every fact is a link to the page where the fact said was cited.
Back in high school I had a teacher that told us that we weren't allowed to use Wikipedia itself as a source, but recommended that we used it's sources as a method of finding information.
Don't cite DIRECTLY from wikipedia, it really isn't a reliable source.
use the sources it provides, those are real sources*
[QUOTE=Craptasket;32054805]Don't cite DIRECTLY from wikipedia, it really isn't a reliable source.
use the sources it provides, those are real sources*[/QUOTE]
Yeah.
Most of my teachers at high-school liked Wikipedia. Although they only wanted us to use the sources that the Wiki articles used, preferably by buying the books to confirm it yourself.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion[/url]
Now, go to contents and hit References: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion#References[/url]
This is where all the sources, the wikipedia page uses is. So the point where wikipedia is not a viable source while in itself is true, it's a compilation of sources. Please correct me if I'm wrong but if you want to make changes to wikipedia, it would have to be approved by a moderator(They basically check if you did not merely delete everything and type: Turd.)
My college have told us that using wikipedia as a source is viable, but we should also practice searching for information ourselves. So in my opinion your teacher should accept it as a source, but he should also make the point of teaching you how to research and gather information through other means, as they will come in handy.
What really goes on in college is people look up Wikipedia articles to read up on the matter but never put it down on their references less they incur the wrath of the University.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;32054857]Yeah.
Most of my teachers at high-school liked Wikipedia. Although they only wanted us to use the sources that the Wiki articles used, preferably by buying the books to confirm it yourself.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately for me, I had some teachers that hated wikipedia and had it's sources at hand to check us. I personally would recommend only keeping sources from books and .gov/.org, then mixing it up with sources not listed on the wiki page.
Where I am, Wikipedia isn't treated as "untrustworthy", the teachers know that all Wikipedia articles cite valid sources of information. Wikipedia is discouraged though because if a student uses Wikipedia (and then goes to cite the sources on a Wikipedia page), the student is shown to be too lazy to find their own sources of information.
I believe teachers at my school have some kind of list of sources on a Wikipedia page, in relation to a given task. If you hand in an assessment and if a majority (if not all) the sources cited can also be found on a Wikipedia page in relation to the subject, the student then has to deal with a lower mark and justify why he or she used Wikipedia for information. I believe this is how it goes for all public secondary schools here.
How to use wikipedia as a reliable source of info in 5 steps
1.Find piece of information
2.click number by piece of said information
3.site the source it links to
4.???
5. Honor Student
Wikipedia is good as a starting place and you go from there
When checking an article, gander at the citations to check it's validity. If it's valid, it's viable info, but don't simply copypaste; just type out the gathered information in your own words.
I would piss my teachers off when they knew i'd use wikipedia because i'd use what they taught me. I followed and only used parts from wikipedia that were cited.
Essentially, use wikipedia it's perfectly fine, but only use information that can be cited, and when you're making your works cited page, only proved the citation that you got from wikipedia, don't say you got it from wikipedia.
Check the references.
Visit the references and cite from there if possible.
I remember back in school a teacher set an essay on a particular subject, he went to such wikipedia page about it, edited it and quite a few people handed in some funny essays.
I think it is reliable in the same way an encyclopedia is reliable; with all that information, its impossible to get [I]everything[/I] right.
But its weird how my mom doesn't find wikipedia reliable when I'm looking up things like 'how a microwave works' or information about various things for personal purposes. With the resources section, I feel pretty confident that most of the articles are checked for some accuracy.
Sure something may be wrong every once and a while, but so can everything else that is based on research on the internet.
My history teacher told us to always check wiki sources to be sure, but she is ok with it.
Wikipedia is okay as long as you use the citations in the articles not the actual articles itself.
[QUOTE=Thechuz1337;32054722]Universities call it the W-word, at least the one I visited.[/QUOTE]
Wankerpedia?
I never use it as a source for school work, but I do read it quite a bit. Sure, some of it may be misleading, but there are pages that are locked and fact checked by moderators.
With all the people checking wikipedia if anything is biased or wrong it will either change it or put a huge sign over the article saying that it could be biased or wrong.
It usually isn't wrong, use your common sense. If you're in the topic of bicycles and someone writes crap about mushrooms, it's BS and go look somewhere else. Then choose one of the sites from the 'citation' section at the bottom, then list that.
Use wikipedia on school projects, live wild, get grades.
Haha I had one Calculus professor that would tell us to go to wikipedia if we wanted to find the proofs on how to do certain things. He would literally give us the wikipedia links.
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