Top 10 Reasons Students Cannot Rely On Wikipedia

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Is Wikipedia a Reliable Source for Student
Research or Assignment?
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• Top 10 Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely On
  Wikipedia
• You must never fully rely on any one source for
  important information.
• You especially cant rely on something when you
  dont even know who wrote it.
• The contributor with an agenda often prevails.
• Individuals with agendas sometimes have
  significant editing authority.
• Sometimes vandals create malicious entries that
  go uncorrected for months.
• There is little diversity among editors.
• The number of active Wikipedia editors has flat
  lined.
• It has become harder for casual participants to
  contribute.
• Accurate contributors can be silenced.
• Wikipedia says, We do not expect you to trust
  us.

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Should Wikipedia be Used as a Source for Academic
Purposes?

• My opinion, Wikipedia should not be used as a
  source for academic purpose (academic assignment
  writing, case study or research)and can only be
  referred by student to get a bird eyes view or
  basic knowledge of the subject they are trying to
  research about. Wikipedia articles can be written
  or modified by anybody, who may or may not have
  the correct perspective about the topic under
  study and using this article as a base can also
  influence the thought process of the writer in
  the same direction.
• Articles which are written on Wikipedia have
  references which can be used to read more about
  any topic and those articles which are published
  through an authentic source can be used as
  reference. Thus, Wikipedia can provide a large
  number of relevant sources which are tagged with
  the Wikipedia articles. Thus, Wikipedia can be
  used for academic purpose but only for directing
  the student to the correct references if possible
  but cannot serve as a source itself.

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• Wikipedia also has place for incorporating
  comments from people who browse the articles and
  in many cases it can be seen that some other
  person would have completely opposite view on the
  article than the writer whose article is
  published by Wikipedia. These comments on
  articles most of the times do not have any
  reference marked which makes the reader wonder
  about the authenticity of these comments as they
  cannot be backed with facts if references are not
  provided. But in some other cases, the facts can
  be verified for the counter argument also and
  thus the Wikipedia article is only a perspective
  of the writer depending on how he or she looks at
  the situation, scenario or at the topic.
• Thus, Wikipedia should not be used as a source
  for academic or collegiate research assay.

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Counter Argument

• Wikipedia articles most of the times have more
  than enough sources mentioned in the reference
  list that would suffice to prove their
  authenticity. All the sources mentioned are
  either from books, articles or journals published
  by well-known publication houses. The references
  mentioned can be accessed also from the Wikipedia
  page which gives even more clarity on the content
  mentioned in the Wikipedia article, which
  actually is a very condensed form or summary of
  the inferences from all the sources mentioned in
  the reference list.
• Wikipedia provides all the information required
  on any topic in a condensed form at a single
  place with proper sources mentioned and
  accessible from the same page. Each fact is
  supported by a reference marked within the
  article and also at the end. Not only facts but
  any event mentioned can be sourced separately as
  links are provided for the same (of other
  Wikipedia pages) with the event name itself or
  with the company name, person name, etc.
• Thus, Wikipedia can be an authentic source of
  information, but this greatly depends on the
  sources used and mentioned in the reference list.

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• Wikipedia is a great source of information which
  can be accessed by anyone who has internet
  connectivity. This source has article on any
  topic possible and is rightly working as an
  encyclopedia. The issue with making this an
  academically accepted source of reference is that
  the content can be written by anyone. It does not
  work on a closed environment where only
  specialists of a field only comment or write for
  the related topics. Anyone can write an article
  on Wikipedia and then people can debate about its
  content providing valid references for both sides
  of the coin.
• Thus, since every article on Wikipedia cannot be
  completely acceptable as an authentic source of
  information, thus, none of the articles from
  Wikipedia can be considered as academic sources
  for referencing purpose.

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