The Truthiness of Wikiality

It is the go to for information for all situations. It can settle a bet between friends, provide you with instant information on thousands and thousands of topics, or give you the perfect factoid that your research paper was missing. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is free to the public to view, edit, and create. There are over a million articles with thousands of administrators and editors attempting to keep all the information accurate and organized.

Because of its format, there are obvious risks involved when using Wikipedia as a source. While most of the information on Wikipedia is correct, there are “WikiTrolls” those who knowingly upload incorrect information; there are also times when users may unknowingly upload incorrect information by mistake. Even though wrong information is taken down, there is always the possibility that for the brief moment you are conducting your research for your final paper, you happen across this bad information masquerading as truth. This risk begs the question of if Wikipedia should be used as a source at all?

In a post from The Official Blog of the Delaware Division of Libraries, this exact question was raised and answered. In 2005, a study was conducted to test Wikipedia’s reliability. Several scientific articles from Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica were compared. Back then, Wikipedia held its own with having four factual errors to every three found in Encyclopedia Britannica; however, Wikipedia was not nearly as organized or well structured. Seven years later in 2012 a similar study was conducted. This time Wikipedia articles often scored better than a standard encyclopedia based on accuracy, references, style, and quality.

Now to answer the question, I would say Wikipedia is a reliable source. Note that it should not be your only source of information. For me, Wikipedia serves as a great starting point that gives you a great overview of information with lists of references that can lead you to sources to further your research.