Which is More Accurate: Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica?
When I was a student, had I written research papers and cited Wikipedia as a source, my professors would have laughed. Wikipedia is often times criticized for its inaccuracies, and brushed off into the “non-scholarly” section, yet even “real” encyclopedias like the Encyclopedia Britannica make mistakes. In fact, there’s a Wikipedia page dedicated to the errors in Encyclopedia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia… imagine that!
On the page before they get into some of the examples, they note that the examples serve as a reminder that no encyclopedia is 100% error-free. It also points out the advantage that Wikipedia has because when an error is found, anybody can correct it at any time. There will always be concerns over the reliability of Wikipedia, but this page lists some of the instances when Wikipedia was right, and EB was wrong.
Now, Encyclopedia Britannica could certainly do the same thing and point out all of the instances where Wikipedia was wrong. The point is, however, that neither source is 100% perfect and each will have their own mistakes. For those who automatically dismiss Wikipedia as a reliable source, you may want to reconsider.
There have also been studies done which show that Wikipedia’s accuracy matches that of Britannica. Knowing that, I think it deserves more credit than what some are willing to give it. I have always liked all of the in-depth information that you can get from Wikipedia versus the usually small snippets of information found in other encyclopedia. I think the key to using Wikipedia is knowing how to use it, keeping in mind that while it does in fact have many inaccuracies, it has mounds of accurate information as well.
Source: Digg
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I often used Wikipedia as a resource (without citing it) when working on my college papers; because they list all of the sources used for the article and then I back tracked to the sources listed for my concrete information. So even if Wikipedia is inaccurate at least you can find the accurate information using the sources listed.
Whenever I’ve used Wikipedia, I’ve always been surprised at how much information was available. I believe most of it is accurate, or at least as accurate as possible.
I don’t think professor’s will ever be able to except citings of Wikipedia though, because it isn’t official.
Wikipedia is a great resource for starting researching a particular topic, as it provides a good overview of the topic with some additional references. It should never be your only source of information tho.
Wikipedia is an excellent starting point when you are searching for an overview of a particular topic. Plus the references cited Provide more details. Wikipedia is the first site that comes in mind whenever i need information on anything.
Much like Mr. Defeatable I too love that Wikipedia cites their sources. It makes it a more credible source to get your information from, and when you’re writing a paper it gives you a nice variety of references. All hail Wikipedia.