Wikipedia Post

Throughout grade school and high school, when writing a paper, teachers would always say "don't use Wikipedia, it's not reliable". Like anything that can be edited on the Internet, the website should be taken with a grain of salt. Just because it can be edited by anyone, doesn't mean that Wikipedia does not have the potential to be a source of accurate information.

Many people would argue that the Internet has it's pros and cons, especially Wikipedia. I think a pro for the website is the fact that there is a references section. With this being said, Wikipedia could be used for a fast source when researching. The person could take that extra step to verify the facts in Wikipedia. It can also bring people to websites or articles they may not have been able to find in a Google search.

A con for Wikipedia could be the issue of editing. Fortunately, there is crowd sourcing, but crowd sourcing could also be a problem. Crowd sourcing could be an issue because what happens if a crowd is biased, and the majority of people don't know their facts? Another problem with Wikipedia could be copyright issues. If I am looking something up, I will usually go to Wikipedia to get a general idea of the topic. When I find a more official website, I sometimes notice the same exact content on the website and on Wikipedia. If the source is cited, it has to be cited correctly.

A step that Wikipedia could take toward accuracy is to have scholars edit and review the articles. This was a suggestion in an article put out by "The Michigan Daily". This could be a problem because the scholars could be biased, although they shouldn't be. It would be very tough to select a certain group of people to let edit the Wikipedia pages, because everyone has a bias toward something, major or minor. The article published in "The Michigan Daily" was written in 2011, but it still relevant today because there is still no formal editing when it comes to Wikipedia.