Wikipedia is a “web based,
free content encyclopedia projected supported by the Wikimedia
Foundation”. Wikipedia has been widely
debated in the academia world for its accuracy information being reported. The
debates of Wikipedia’s accuracy stems from it being a user generated encyclopedia
.I would be wrong to answer the question of rather Wikipedia is ok to use in academic
papers. My understanding and knowledge of Wikipedia is limited.
What I am able to speak on are some the strengths
that Wikipedia has as an encyclopedia. I also am able to talk about how one
article in particular that I read compares to Wikipedia’s reliable sources requirements.
Based off my findings of the one article I read does not speak for Wikipedia’s reliability
as a whole but my findings could be issues that not only occur in my article
that I read but, other Wikipedia articles.
One of what I find to be
Wikipedia’s major strengths is that it founded by a foundation. Wikipedia being
an encyclopedia that solely functions off donations allows the people who
participate in the community not to be persuaded by financial gain. In the text Blogging by
Jill Rettberg she discuses how when bloggers begin to blog for money they have
to “maintain trust “with their public (139). Though Rettberg was talking about
people in the Blogging community specifically this concept can apply to people
who are in the world of writing as a whole. When finanical gain is at stake for
a writer they really have to work hard and prove themselves as trustworthy to
their audiences while writing. Writing to not gain is easier to establish trust
with your public.
The
second thing Rettberg discusses about the community of blogging but can apply
to Wikipedia is by “…letting people contribute…you build readership and a sense
of community” (163).Wikipedia being a interactive encyclopedia community.
Hyperlinking encyclopedia links builds what Rettberg calls “distributed
network”(69). Distributed network is a term that has derived from the computer
community but is applicable with Wikipedia. It’s when there is one central hub
and inter connects with other computers. Wikipedia is the central hub in this
case but the user generated content are the other computers around it that help
it function.
After looking at Wikipedia
on a larger scale I got to focus in on one of its articles. The article I
focused on was how the Us Treasury Bureau designed and Produces Cuba’s silver certificates.
The article two main sources were the Cuba Before
the World: A Comprehensive and Descriptive Account of the Republic of Cuba From
the Earliest Times to the Present Day and the New York Times. The book
was an excellent choice to use because before books are published they have to
be fact checked but using the New York Times may or may not have been the best
choice. Wikipedia in their reliablesources article
states
on how one hand “news reporting from well established news outlets generally considered
reliable…” but on the other hand news sources often contain both factual
content and opinion content”. The
situation presented here is a double edge sword. The New York Times is a creditable
newspaper but on the other hand newspapers have a mix of fact and opinion. The situation would fall under “Faulty use of Authority” what Edward Corbett
talks about in his text called The Elements of Reasoning.
Just
because a source is considered an authority doesn’t mean there always right.
The article on Wikipedia could have been better enhanced if it used multiple
authors to confirm the point and not just two sources.
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