Ever been in this situation, at the beginning of the semesters, where lecturers take great pains to explain plagiarism and why Wikipedia is not really eligible to be quoted as a reference? I have.
The issues mainly stem from the nature of Wikipedia; it is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This has caused issues of legibiltiy, since even anonymous users of Wikipedia are able to freely edit a page, though the edits will only be approved after it has been moderated by volunteers (What-is-what.com 2006). This brings up the issue of legibility, and content accuracy, which may not be reliable depending on what was submitted and what was moderated. This also brings up the issue of design, where articles have seemingly different standards of quality. Some are very in-depth (see: Thoroughbread) while others are very vague and almost devoid of information (see: Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam).
Surprisingly though, Wikipedia has proven to be a good resource for scientific articles. BBC News (2005) reported that a peer review of Wikipedia’s scientific articles have been conducted, which results in four major errors and a 162 other errors in Wikipedia, which is not too different from Britannica’s 4 major errors and 123 other errors.
It should be noted that Wikipedia seeks to archive and collect articles and research that have been released elsewhere. What this means is that as far as legibility goes, Wikipedia aims to provide information concerning what other people have done, be it research, news or whatnot, that can be linked to, cited and in thus, verified (Willinsky 2007). Note that the truth may not necessarily be what’s cited in a Wikipedia page, only that it has been published elsewhere, and thus the actual claim to correct information has to be vetted and dealt with by that publication instead. Wikipedia only compiles them.
What does this mean? Well, since what Wikipedia does is mainly show other people’s published work, it’s hardly a befitting resource for an academic area of study. It is sure fun to surf through though, to keep up to date with the latest news. As far as academic research goes though, it is best to seek elsewhere.
Wikipedia is thus an editable online encyclopedia, but is not considered to be a credible or valid source of information, and the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, agrees. He has been quoted to say, “For God’s sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia,” (Orlowski 2006).
Wise words indeed. If you do want to quote something from Wikipedia though, it might help if you’re using it for legal purposes. More than 100 judicial rulings have used information from Wikipedia in a court ruling since 2004 (Cohen 2007). Though not reliable for critical issues or academic ventures (since most do not recognise it as a legitimate resource), Wikipedia might help in gathering basic information. Otherwise, it might be in your best interests not to use it, except perhaps for checking out an article’s outgoing hyperlinks.
References
Cohen, N 2007, Courts turn to Wikipedia, but selectively, The New York Times, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html?_r=1&ex=1186545600&en=4e6683fb4fac3044&ei=5070&oref=slogin>
Orlowski, A 2006, Avoid Wikipedia, warns Wikipedia chief, The Register, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/wikipedia_can_damage_your_grades/>
Willinsky, J 2007, What open access research can do for Wikipedia, firstmonday.org, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/willinsky/index.html>
BBC News 2005, Wikipedia survives research test, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm>
What-is-What.com 2006, What is Wikipedia?, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://what-is-what.com/what_is/wikipedia.html>
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