Previously, we learned about reference resources. Wikipedia is also a reference resource, and is one of the most popular websites on the internet. However, most college instructors do not allow students to use Wikipedia as a reference resource in research projects.
Search for an article in on a topic that you already know something about. First, read the article and examine the information you find there. Next, explore the following questions:
- How accurate is the Wikipedia page?
- What is the authority of the source material? How can you tell?
- Do you have to be an expert to contribute to Wikipedia?
- If you cannot use Wikipedia as a reference resource, how might it still be useful for college level research?
- How is this the same or different from how you might use other reference resources?
- Why do you think that instructors generally do not accept Wikipedia as a reference resource?
Include the name of the article and a link to the article. You do not need to cite the article for the purposes of this discussion, but you do need to use quotation marks if you use a direct quote to demonstrate a point.
