Wikipedia: A Reliable Source for Information?

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Wikipedia, an online information center, has significantly changed the face of encyclopedias and scholarly journals over the last ten years. It is quickly taking books, journals, and money out of the equation for research. Wikipedia has created a new way to gather information, social network, and do research. Although Wikipedia has its positive uses it is not always a reliable source and is best used as a starting point for research.

In March 2000 Wikipedia started out as Nupedia.com with a review board of experts. By 2001 less than twenty-four articles were completed. It was then that the creator, Jimmy Wales, and his editor-in-chief, Larry Sanger, decided to make Wikipedia. They created it as an open-source encyclopedia that permitted anyone to create and edit its content. This freedom allowed Wikipedia to grow at an exponential rate. In 2006 there were approximately one million articles and by 2007 it had grown to over two million (“Wikipedia”). When compared to other online encyclopedias such as Britannica.com it surpasses in every way except that people are fallible and sometimes the information is not 100% accurate. On Britannica the free features are limited and there are ads throughout the web-page but for a certain amount of money per year a user can access the full benefits of the site. Wikipedia is completely free with no copyrights, allowing access in several languages and from anywhere in the world with no ads to be found. Due to the way Wikipedia was originally designed users are permitted to print, copy, and pass out the information they gather. Unlike if a distinct number of words are used from any of Richard Hofstadter's works a check must be sent to him to avoid penalties for plagiarism (Rosenzweig 117-46). The...

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...: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture (2008)

4. Andrew Lih, from The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia (2009)

5. Amit Ray and Erhardt Graeff, from “Reviewing the Author-Function in the Age of Wikipedia,” in Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism, eds. Caroline Eisner and Martha Vicinus (2008)

6. Roy Rosenzweig, from “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,” in Journal of American History 93.1 (June 2006): 117-46.

7. Adam Tornes, “Wikipedia: Encyclopedia or Kama Sutra?” 31 May 2007. 3 Sept. 2009

8. Jakob Voss, from “Measuring Wikipedia,” Physical Review 74.3 (2006). 28 Aug. 2009

9. Jonathan Zittrain, from The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it (2008)

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