Wikipedia?

[Tha_Warriur]

It is VERY simple!!

 

 

 

 

 

If a Wikipedia article has its sources, Its usually legit, go to those sources, and use them!!

 

 

 

 

 

but watch out, alot of political articles are edited by Israel's cyber-army! (Lol)

 

[____]

What I find funny at my school is that teachers won't let you use Wikipedia, but they'll let you use some online site they've never ever heard of before.

 

 

 

I could make my own site, and they'd let me use stuff from there..

Funny you should mention it.

 

 

 

 

 

I used my own work from a previous assignment (which was web-based) and got pulled up for plagerism, then when they finally listened to me that it was my work i'd plagarised they tried to fail me on a technicality that it was still plagarism as it was a previous assessment item or whatever.

 

 

 

Idiot teaching staff sometimes.

[warren211]

Some of it is not reliable. Everyone has acces to it, and everyone can make changes to it.

 

 

 

And yet I can google a random sight on the american revolution and expect a trustworthy site just because its owned independantly? Plus the teachers accept it?

 

 

 

I like using Wikipedia. I once had a report where I needed five internet sources. Picked 4 of em off the internet, then decided to be a rebel and use Wikipedia as the 5th. I noticed that not only did Wikipedia have every bit of info the other sites had, but itt had more! Just because its user contribution, doesnt mean its untrustworthy. any site off google can be a fake or have innacurate info.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Some of it is not reliable. Everyone has acces to it, and everyone can make changes to it.

 

 

 

And yet I can google a random sight on the american revolution and expect a trustworthy site just because its owned independantly? Plus the teachers accept it?

 

 

 

I like using Wikipedia. I once had a report where I needed five internet sources. Picked 4 of em off the internet, then decided to be a rebel and use Wikipedia as the 5th. I noticed that not only did Wikipedia have every bit of info the other sites had, but itt had more! Just because its user contribution, doesnt mean its untrustworthy. any site off google can be a fake or have innacurate info.

 

Especially now the Internet is moving to a phase where most information on a website is user-based and not Website Admin based. Take a look at Tip.It for example. OK, information on the main site still needs people like me to authorise it, but the information I use essentially comes from users. Then there's the biggest amount of info on the Tip.It website - the forums, all of which is user-based information.

 

 

 

It's just part of the challenge of the Internet in general. Admins have got to work out what information is actually being posted on to the site. Wikpedia have done so by forcing moderators and their anti-vandalism volunteers to hold up and delete any information which hasn't got a clear link connected to it. I should know from the amount of times I've tried submitting info about RS onto the RuneScape entry...

[Zonorhc]

I would advise against using online sources for most academic writing.

 

 

 

If it's history, you're better off going to a library. Personally, I would only use the internet for quick information I won't have to cite, or statistics.

[wakka102]

They don't allow us to use Wikipedia in schools as a source to do any sort of paper or anything at all. However, I know some teachers that get information from wikipedia to use in class as well as my English teacher use to print out whole pages from the site to use as handouts during a discussion of something.

 

 

 

Your school needs new teachers. Fact.

 

Regurgitating someone elses opinion is not teaching.

I got a private school that costs me 13,000$ a year

 

 

 

It's mainly just in English though. My teacher liked to discuss themes and such in books and he would sometimes branch off from that. And when he did that he would sometimes print out a page from wikipedia about some topic he wanted to discuss and somehow tie it with a book we were reading. Its kinda hard to explain but maybe you get what I mean.

 

 

 

I would advise against using online sources for most academic writing.

 

 

 

If it's history, you're better off going to a library. Personally, I would only use the internet for quick information I won't have to cite, or statistics.

That was my other question though. What makes a book anymore trustworthy? Doing papers in the past I've noticed some conflicts between books when writing on a topic. I'm simply wondering how you can be SURE if info from ANYTHING can be right?

[Rcty]

I've also heard that, but my teachers do not disallow it.

 

 

 

I know that people (with accounts [?]) can edit any article, but I think it has to be approved by someone first?

 

 

 

~Rcty

[Zonorhc]

I would advise against using online sources for most academic writing.

 

 

 

If it's history, you're better off going to a library. Personally, I would only use the internet for quick information I won't have to cite, or statistics.

That was my other question though. What makes a book anymore trustworthy? Doing papers in the past I've noticed some conflicts between books when writing on a topic. I'm simply wondering how you can be SURE if info from ANYTHING can be right?

 

Difference of opinion. Bias is one of the most useful pieces of information you can use from books. You can analyse it to examine the individual historian's own opinions and how those mesh with their context.

 

 

 

Also, cross-referencing between books is highly recommended, because it is very likely the historians are using different sources, or, if the same, then different interpretations of the sources. If you have access to the sources they used, check those as well.

 

 

 

Books are simply more reliable as sources, especially for history, because they have a tendency to be written by people with some amount of credibility, and since it is highly unlikely that their content will change since you used them, it makes it easier for anyone reading your work to check up on your citations.

[happybappy]

I don't regard Wikipedia as juch as an encyclopedia as a reference tool. Having said that, most of its information is perfectly accurate.

 

 

 

I've often seen it on these forums. An instant dismissal of any information from Wikipedia. The information is only useless if you don't bother to check the sources that are linked to the article, since all information on Wikipedia has to have a source proving it. Having said that, it pleases me there are people who are sceptical of the information they see on the Net.

 

 

 

So my advice is when you find a good piece of information on Wikipedia, trace its source, and use that instead.

 

 

 

Someone once changed all the "f"s in the fear article to "ph"s.

[mithos23132]

What you need to do is to search what you are looking for and then instead of using the information on the site, go to the source of the information, usually at the bottom.

[Stilev]

this articles author is so narrow minded i dont think i should even bother posting this, but w\e i got time to waste.

 

 

 

wikipedia can and should be used for finding out some general information, or for a light review on a topic that you have re-viewed a great deal on.

 

 

 

wikpedia should not be a main source for an 10 page paper on nuclear fission. why you ask?

 

 

 

-wikipedia has the occasional professional work on it, but generally the information is just from some guy that has little or no experence on the subject and just got him info from the TV or some site, and probaly forgot something, and usually will fill in what he think fits, not what might be true.

 

 

 

-a 'BOOK' is generally writen by some that has spent around a year reseraching the thing w\e the hell it is, the guy should know what the hell he is talking about, and if you think something is wrong you have a name of the author, and can check him out, wikiepdia i could go change it to say that the nuclear bomb runs on dissel engines

 

 

 

high school vs college

 

 

 

high schools generally the teachers are looking for some facts, but really are interested in what some 16'ish year old thinks he knows about nuclear fission, he doesn't know what he is really talking about, this wont be his job after this, he just looked up some info and strung it together

 

 

 

college they are looking for that fine detail, and if you got bad info they marking you down kuz the guy teaching the class is probaly a guy that worked on making a nuclear bomb, and if you saying nuclear fission runs on a diseal engine and present that the US military they ganna laugh at you

 

 

 

wikipedia general knowledge stuff for the most part should be around 99% acuate, and if you just gettign some quick facts, all for it, but once you start looking at the finner details, a high school teacher might not notice that you have wrong info in it, but you still do

 

 

 

i hope you understand this a little better, i doubt many people will actully read all this though so w\e

[johntm]

my teachers said i couldnt use it on certain projects. Anyone can edit it, without a wikiaccount(but they track ur IP), i have edited it. I didnt put false info though. They scan it every hour for false info. I just surfed wikipedia one day and found that out.

[Guthix_Girl]

one of my teachers said when looking for resources for research wikipedia isnt the best place to look. It isnt entirely accurate because its not really.. well a funded research center.. i mean its information random people post there.. and its not always true, or well thought out. Im not sure if i said that right.. i dont remember what my teacher said exactly about it cause it was a year ago.

[Guest]

People at my school edit wikipedia and insult others through it. For instance they'd change the wikipedia page on prawns and write stuff like " is a prawn etc etc. That's pretty much why our school's ip has been banned from editing wikipedia.

[Necromagus]

I had to write my first scientific article this year, and during the writing classes one of the first things they told us was not to use Wikipedia as a source. I still managed to find plenty of helpful stuff there, and like others said, plenty of directions to sources that I was allowed to use.

[sour_tacos]

My old history teacher encouraged Wikipedia. His philosophy? "Less time it takes for you to write the papers, less time it takes me to grade them, more time for football." :-k I have to say its a good idea...

[flying_death_bombs55]

I was reading an article in Wikipedia once and I refreshed the page then someone had deleted it all and wrote: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!! over and over again. -.-

[Animaslayer]

were allowed to use it in schools

 

 

 

 

 

its probably because it lets you search anything

 

 

 

(and i mean nearlyeverything)

 

 

 

so thats why i bet ur teachers wont

[topide]

You can look at the sources that wikipedia cites and use those as sources instead.

[Blue_Fire_Blaze]

Teachers don't like Wikipedia because people soemtimes go on there and edit things for fun. Like this one time I was bored and looked up hair. And instead of something explianing what hair is this one guy edited it saying why the heck are you looking up hair. then he posted stuff about the Wii

[venomai]

Research suggests Wikipedia is comparable to Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was once a standard in many schools.[1]

[Zonorhc]

Research suggests Wikipedia is comparable to Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was once a standard in many schools.[1]

 

One could argue that the key difference is that the latter was nowhere near as readily editable by the general public.

 

 

 

Regardless, Britannica has never really seemed overly useful to me.

[venomai]

One could argue that the key difference is that the latter was nowhere near as readily editable by the general public.

 

They can catch that stuff pretty quickly and IP ban you for it. In any case, it's always good measure to check sources...

 

 

 

Here are some funny Wikipedia vandalisms:

 

Colbert's elephant fun

 

Bad jokes archive