Digital Writing

Week 8 – Wikipedia

Wikipedia, though a cultural mainstay, is still followed by many an opinion as to its validity. It has been taught in schools as the devil, with easily editable sources and claims, while still maintaining a place as one of most popular sites for easily accessible information. So, what really is Wikipedia and is it really that sketch?

Wikipedia is the holy grail of rabbit holes. With endless hyperlinks from page to page, holding a plethora of information allowing you to spend hours learning new things on any topic you can think of. And yes, it can be edited by the public. This does influence the credibility of the site, but there are safeguards to ensure that the information is correct or at least has a valid source to back it up.

Wikipedia’s Trustworthiness and Where to Begin

Wikipedia does its best to guarantee accurate information is available. With high controversy or highly edited pages, there is typically a lock, meaning only certain editors can access it to make changes. This verifies that someone won’t just go in and change information on the page of someone or something that is a hot button topic.

Another safeguard is admin and bots. Both work in tandem to verify edits and keep everything accurate. People can make mistakes but with other people on the lookout, mistakes can be minimized.

And one of the most important things about Wiki is it has a bibliography. Every claim made on the site should have a source attached. This allows you to navigate to the sources and double check who made the claim and where it came from. Next to a claim, there is typically a clickable number that will jump you down to the bibliography where you can see the original source of a claim. Another feature of this is a tag “better source needed” that can be seen next to claims that, as the title implies, need a better source. This can happen next to claims made when there is a conflict of interest or something else that would indicate a source may not be the most trustworthy. This, at minimum, allows you as a reader to understand when a claim might be questionable or worth verifying beyond Wiki.

Wikipedia is a great way to start research. It is not the end all be all by any means, but it is truly great place to begin. The biggest thing about using Wiki is to be responsible. There are ways to double check information and verify what you are seeing, especially before repeating it to other people. Wikipedia’s tertiary status means it is definitely not something you should cite in an official essay, but it can give you a place with condensed information and accessible primary and secondary sources that you can include in formal manners.

Conclusion

Yes, Wikipedia has its faults and is by no means the only way to do research, but that does not mean it can’t be a useful tool in your research process. It is best to keep in mind the ways that Wikipedia can have issues, so you can avoid them to the best of your ability. Remember folks, use Wikipedia responsibly!

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4 responses to “Week 8 – Wikipedia”

  1. ipadbaby22 Avatar
    ipadbaby22

    Especially after working on the Verification Quest it shocks me how much Wikipedia is vilified in school; I have even been told not to use it in college courses for information I’m not sure where to find elsewhere, like dates of birth and such. And, as you point out the site offers plenty of sourcing through hyperlinks and footnotes. As well as protective features like the lock symbol and notices when information is lacking a strong source.

    As you explain, Wikipedia can be extremely useful as a starting point of research. I think if schools stressed this aspect and still had requirements like 3+ academic sources, students would have stronger skills both on the Wikipedia site and while performing research online.

  2. tacobell-CEO Avatar
    tacobell-CEO

    I will never understand why Wikipedia is talked about in schools the way it is. In my experience, all throughout high school we were not only told that Wikipedia isn’t a source (which is true!) but we were also told that Wikipedia is never reliable. This makes a lot of sense until you try to edit a Wikipedia page! Like you say in your post, it can be really difficult to edit a Wikipedia article, and there is a real culture around Wikipedia editing. In the case that misinformation does end up on the site, there are editors who have their “niche” that watch certain pages like a hawk. With a Wikipedia account, you can get email notifications when a page is edited. I completely understand saying “you cannot site Wikipedia” and encouraging middle and high schoolers to explore other resources, but the total writing-off of Wikipedia feels icky to me. 

  3. li_05 Avatar
    li_05

    I found it very interesting to read about all the discourse surrounding Wikipedia. I’ve had teacher that have threatened to fail an entire paper if Wikipedia was used. He wasn’t a bad teacher, or even a particularly hard grader, he was so anti-Wikipedia. Mentioning it or if he saw our tabs open to Wikipedia would result in a long speech for the class! I remember when I first found the reference section of Wikipedia without getting caught and I wrote a paper using some of those references and when I turned it in I was surprised to find that he never found out despite him guaranteeing he would find out if we used it. Looking back I do understand why there was hesitation to use Wikipedia, however, by the time I was using it an academic capacity those bugs were already fixed and the process of adding new information was completely limited. I had friends who tried and within seconds were flagged and their “information” was erased from the site. Its such a useful tool that has such a bad stigma around it unfortunately. I still love using it to this day.

  4. arbeez Avatar
    arbeez

    Wikipedia is definitely overly stigmatized within academics. Is it scholarly? No. But like you mentioned, it can provide key information needed to conduct one’s research. I find its bibliography feature to be the most convenient. It’s a great method to finding more details on claims. I think the reason its been so heavily stigmatized in school is because of its convenience. It’s easy to use it as a crutch and hinder the research process. As great as it is to acknowledge its usefulness, it’s also important to note why a non-collegiate student should avoid it. Not that I advocate for a full ban of Wikipedia K-12, but I think it does require some restraint that not everyone is willing to follow. Sort of like learning the rules before you break them.

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