How is Wikipedia Useful?
Advantages:
- easy to use
- pulls a lot of information together into one place
- gives detailed answers
- written in many languages.
- much of the information has cited sources/websites so it can be checked or followed through
- there is some good control over accuracy of information as there are many contributors who have specialised
knowledge overviewing additions and changes
- lets you know if information is unreliable and whether an article is disputed so you can judge the trustworthiness
of the info.
- it is not easy to write rubbish or junk on an article - Wikipedia filter it and send that contributor mail to warn them
of what they have done
Disadvantages:
- unrelible when information is not cited and sources not given
- sometimes there is a lot of information and it's necessary to skim through
- is not academically acceptable so therfore can't cite as a source
It's very useful. The argument about it's validity is debateable. It is said that it can be "edited by anyone" (not strictly true), but there's so much moderation that the majority of the (very small) percentage of vandalism (as opposed to constructive edits) will be reverted and is usually quite blatant i.e. fairly obvious
From the high calibre of entries found for many subjects on Wikipedia, I would be surprised if the community of Wikipedia Editors isn't made up of a vast proportion of academics and/or highly respected professors/lecturers.
Finally, we are constantly reminded that academically we should always have more than one source for our work. Problem solved.
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