User:MrsHamilton
Many sources are fascinating, and easy to find, but not all of them are useful.
The nature of Wikipedia
Why Wikipedia is so great
- The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Information must be checked against reliable sources: Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.
- WP vandalism study - Concludes that 3.0% of edits made to Wikipedia articles are vandalism, 97% of which is made by anonymous editors. 25% of the vandalism is repaired by anonymous editors, 75% by registered editors, and the median time for the reversion of vandalism is 14 minutes.
Why Wikipedia is not so great
Evaluating every source
USGOV.jpg)
- "...Wikipedia is more like a library (or like the World Wide Web itself) than like a typical reference work. The mere fact that a book is in the library is no guarantee against bias or misinformation. The same can be said of Wikipedia articles. This does not make libraries (or Wikipedia) useless, it just means that they should be approached differently than one approaches a typical reference work."[1]
- "FUTON bias" = Full Text On the Net
- ...the failure in academic research, when researchers tend to search and read what is available online, and ignore relevant studies that are available offline in printed format only.
My advice in a nutshell
Remember that your teachers and librarians have chosen resources, print or electronic, paid or free, old or new, with the goal of your successful research in mind.
Tools
- Wikipedia:Basic navigation
- Wikipedia:Searching - What to do when the "go" and "search" buttons aren't enough
- Wikipedia:Featured articles
- Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia