Citing wikipedia as a source of information?

Most schools do not allow Wikipedia as a source just for thoes reasons. If some one is planning on doing a paper for school dont site them as a source with out getting approval.

Some schools and colleges will not accept wikipedia as a source; because there have been a few instances where misinformation has been placed on the site. But, I have successfully used it to find information and other sources to check. I do doublecheck and verify all my info from any Internet site. After all, you do not know if a hacker has been playing games; if the site owner is pushing their own agenda; or where they got their information from in the first place.

In my experience, using Wikipedia as a reputable source can go either way. However, I've found that using it as a source for college papers is definitely a no no. Because it's done by people, it cannot really be relied on so much. Therefore, using it in a college paper definitely knocks down your grade and can make you not be taking seriously. Unless you know a lot about the topic and know the article you are referencing, then I wouldn't use it unless you can back that information up with other sources.

You are right. Few months ago there was this program on tv what they did was they went and changed few things on wikipedia and left it like that 2 months later the wrong info was still on. After that I might read something on it but never trust the information 100%

I adore Wikipedia. But I use mainly to find out info about celebs such as there date of birth when I am watching a movie and curious.

I believe you are correct that the information can be updated by anyone. As a writer, I would never relie on wikipedia as an accurate source. IMDB (Internet Movie Database) is the same. The basic information, like that fact that someting exists, is accurate, but beyond that, I think the information is completely unreliable. I wouldn't trust those article either. Regards.

in university you are NOT allowed to use wikipedia as a source, because it is not academic or scholarly. however, as mentioned, above, there are a lot of links/citations to REAL academic and scholarly sources, which can be used and are great for citing.

Most Wikipedia articles have their own citations - it would generally be better to go to those sources instead, and then judge whether their information is reliable. Wikipedia's a great starting point, but I wouldn't use it as a final authority on anything.

Actually, Wikipedia is quite the opposite. It does allow "anyone to post anything" without providing reliable references to support the user's findings. It's not blog of information as one might imagine. Instead, Wikipedia offers users the ability to enter information based upon their supported knowledge of a particular topic. Wikipedia's policy is that if the references are not reliable, the information entered by the user will be removed. As of right now, there are at least 2.1 million articles that have been posted on Wikipedia based upon at least 250 differenet languages. So from this standpoint, Wikipedia is a reliable source of information that is verified by its users and staff members.

Hi you are right about wikipedia anyone can edit the information on there, but at the same time touch wood its always come in handy for me when i'm doing work for uni. I think its unlikely that you will come across wrong information on wikipedia, because how many people are going to wake up one day and think i'm going to change the information on wikipedia to annoy some one, and if it was mostly wrong it wouldn't be so popular, like it is in the UK.

Hi you are right about wikipedia anyone can edit the information on there, but at the same time touch wood its always come in handy for me when i'm doing work for uni. I think its unlikely that you will come across wrong information on wikipedia, because how many people are going to wake up one day and think i'm going to change the information on wikipedia to annoy some one, and if it was mostly wrong it wouldn't be so popular, like it is in the UK.