With schools everywhere already in session or soon to be, I would like to answer a question that I am often asked, “Why do school’s discourage students from using Wikipedia?”  This question is best answered by first establishing what Wikipedia is. So here we go!

Here is the definition, taken straight from the Wikipedia, Wikipedia page:

“Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 16 million articles (over 3.3 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranked 7th among all websites on Alexa.”

All through high school I was conditioned to fear Wikipedia. One learned quickly that even murmuring those 9 fatal letters on school property would result in serious repercussions, but why? I never understood at the time why my teachers were so quick to malign one of the most important websites ever created. After some time reflecting, I can honestly say that my teachers had my best interests in mind.

I have forgiven my teachers for the blatant social engineering because at the end of the day they were trying to convey an important message, one that every student has to learn, and that is that plagiarism is never okay and that proper citing and finding reliable resources is highly important.

While in school, I can remember a number of occasions where people were caught plagiarizing. Many times students would simply lift information word for word off of Wikipedia and claim it as their own. As a writer myself, I would hate to know that someone might be stealing my work. It’s just as real and just as serious as any other kind of thievery, just much easier to do and sadly done often by lazy students. With a simple ctrl+C anyone’s hard work could be ripped off, and that’s a serious thing that needs to be taught to our children.
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However, if one has a firm grasp on what honest work is and wants a great place to start any kind of research project, I would encourage them to use Wikipedia. Wikipedia will typically have citations for any kind of information posted. These citations will have bracketed superscript numbers that reference the footnotes at the bottom of the page. If you click these citations it will bring you to the highlighted footnote it corresponds with. If there is no citation then just skip over it, it’s not worth using.

Once you have found a piece of information that sounds relevant, you can check its source at the bottom. This of course leads to another question: Is it reliable? This will take a little common sense. If this particular piece of information is found via a shady looking resource then again, skip over it, it’s not worth your time. However, if this source is from a website like CIA World Fact Book than its safe to assume it’s reliable. Again, this takes common sense, but as long as you are citing the information properly, you will always be safe!

There you have it, an honest prospective on Wikipedia, taken with both the student and teacher in mind, to give you a reasonable take on Wikipedia!

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