Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Wikipedia an unreliable entity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Wikipedia an unreliable entity
Wikipedia is a free virtual encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, who can be anonymous or recognized by their true identity. The website allows anyone to add or delete information, which explains why the website’s information is frequently updated. Unfortunately, the website can be edited so easily, people tend to take advantage of this privilege of editing freely. Anonymous users often add false, offensive, or inappropriate texts or images that can cause confusion or problems for other people. Wikipedia is not a reliable website for educational use because of the lack of trust, absence of revision of accuracy, and publicity damage to the website.
Wikipedia recognizes that it would not be wise for someone to use this virtual encyclopedia as a source for any educational use or just wanting some information (“Not Authoritative” n.d.). Those who put in false information are more likely to be anonymous and because they are anonymous it causes complication for Wikipedia. Wikipedia have set rules for the users to “follow”, but those rules are obviously ignored, which results Wikipedia not having total control nor organization with the users. For example, if someone chose to do a research paper and chose an article from Wikipedia that has
…show more content…
For example, if someone searches up Michael Jackson, and they see that the article was last updated two years and they see a false information, it will only show how Wikipedia has no organization nor control with the articles. Without Wikipedia revising the accuracy of the articles, it will make it challenging for the reader to choose either the article is reliable or not. Even if the person decides to use this false information, it will only confuse them when someone tells them the truth. That is why Wikipedia is not reliable because of the lack of revision of accuracy of the
The internet is a hub of information. It is easy to access this information and resources by simple looking up a simple topic. How much of this information is actually true? In The New Yorker article “The Things People Say” author Elizabeth Kolbert explains the dangers of believing wholeheartedly the information given to us online. She uses logos to prove that the internet can be biased with information through “group polarization” and a site’s inability to upload contradictory information. She fails however with ethos in her paper because she is hypocritical.
Wikipedia contributors. "Censorship." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 30 Oct. 2013. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.
As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia. While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it.
...ie, 31 (1) 27-49.Fallis, D. (2008). Toward an epistemology of Wikipedia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(10), 1662–1674. doi:10.1002/asi.20870
Correspondingly, in “Do Fact Checks Matter” by Danielle Kurtzleben she establishes that Americans ignore facts and believe in falsehoods especially coming from a politicians on their side. This source agrees with both “Why We Believe Alternative Facts” By Kirsten Weir and “Two Stories, One America: How Political Narratives Shape Our Understanding of Reality” By Stephen Hawkins and Tommy Flint. All four of the authors demonstrate how people will disregard proven facts if the facts do not compliment their beliefs. Kurtzleben focuses on how fact checking is not effective in this day and age because people simply ignore facts and the backfire effect comes into play. The backfire effect is when people hear facts opposing their beliefs and instead of the fact changing their mind it actually makes them dig in their heels and defend what they believe even more. Weir informs that even the most educated people hide behind confirmation bias or as she puts it motivated reasoning. Hawkins and Flint show that people ignore facts just to go along with their ideologies instead of keeping their personal
Since the internet has been available in schools and libraries in this country, there has been a debate about what should be accessible to users, especially minors. The amount of information disseminated on the world wide web is vast, with some sources valuable for scholarly and personal research and entertainment, and some sources that contain material that is objectionable to some (ie. pornography, gambling, hate groups sites, violent materials). Some information potentially accessible on the internet such as child pornography and obscenity is strictly illegal and is not protected under the First Amendment. Some information available on the internet that may be valuable to some is at the same time perceived to be worthless or potentially harmful to some. For libraries serving the public, there has been controversy on the issue of providing the internet, free of censorship or filtering, to users. While some librarians and their professional associations align with ideals of free and unfiltered access to all information provided by the internet, some feel that filtering internet content to exclude possibly objectionable materials is a reasonable measure to prevent potential harm to minors.
Technology has provided our society with numerous innovations that have been created to improve the quality of life on a daily basis. One such innovation is the Internet. The access to a wide variety of information is perhaps the most valuable tool, as well as the most important tool, that we have entering the twenty-first century. There are virtually no limits on how much can be achieved through the use of the Internet. This is not, however, necessarily a good thing. Most people find that offensive material such as child pornography and hate-related propaganda can be viewed by people too easily via the Internet. While child pornography is a detestable subject, it does not have the sort of appeal that a hate group website does in that there are stricter guidelines preventing individuals from attaining child pornography material from the Internet. These stricter guidelines include the Communications Decency Act (1995), which forbids the use of the Internet for such purposes as attaining material of a child pornographic nature (Wolf, 2000). This law can also be used to monitor the hate group websites, but since the law is too broad, it is rarely held up in court. The hate group websites do, however, have a large enough following that there is legislation being formed to specifically target the material on the sites. Despite the highly offensive nature of hate group websites, the sites should not be censored because the right to free speech must be preserved. In this paper we will define what is considered to be hateful content; why this hateful content should be protected; what else can be done to monitor this material on the Internet; and when are the people cr...
In today’s society information is everywhere. We have libraries, but we also have online resources. Information can be obtained from almost everywhere today, but how accurate are these websites in giving us actual facts and not just beliefs or people’s opinions. One of the most popular resources that we use to gather information is the famous Wikipedia. Type anything in any web search engine and you will most likely get results from Wikipedia. But is Wikipedia accurate? If we look at the websites URL, we can see that it’s a nonprofit organization, and a vast majority of people contribute, so there is no author, email, or phone number, or any way to contact. To verify how accurate all the information is. Putting Wikipedia to the test
Firstly, Wikipedia is a free-for-all informative source, meaning that anyone can type something and say it’s a fact. In lieu of credentials, students are often warned against using Wikipedia due to doubtful credential, which further diminishes ethos. There is no pathos, as no connection to the audience can be created. The audience will have a nagging suspicion in the back of their heads, wondering if print adds up to fact, and through this both pathos and ethos are shot down; thus no connection to the audience is established. The tonality remains monotone throughout the entire
According to Darren Crovitz and W.Scott Smoot, authors of the article “Wikipedia Friend, Not Foe”, “Wikipedia provides a unique opportunity about writing for a real audience, meeting genre expectations, establishing credibility, revising for clarity and purpose, and entering public discussions about the nature of truth, accuracy, and neutrality”(www.ncte.org). Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that provides information on almost any topic. Understanding the various advantages that Wikipedia provides users with, makes it easy to see why so many seek to gain knowledge here. Even though Wikipedia has some drawbacks, students should be able to use Wikipedia because it is a revolutionary way to educate and inform students.
Knowledge is power. It is important to learn how to refrain from being offensive, both on and off the internet. The anonymity that a screen provides makes it easy for hateful or offensive speech to be posted without concern for the consequences, and that poses a serious threat to everyone's online safety.
People use Wikipedia to research for essays and other things that they need help with. People can’t write essays without knowing the fact about it, the author, says that “Wikipedia helps people out, when they need to find a topic on an essay or any other researching projects. Wikipedia allows collecting and sharing information in a way that was never before possible prior to the advent of the Internet and the personal computer revolution” (1, Understanding Wikipedia). This means that you can find any information on any subject and you can share data with other people. In addition, Wikipedia gives you knowledge on all of the subjects in a way the author says “Wikipedia is a valuable tool for the collection of knowledge on all subjects. It represents a unique way of collecting and changing dynamic information that reflects our growing digital culture. As encyclopedia goes, Wikipedia has grown to maturity.”(2, Understanding Wikipedia). This means that Wikipedia gives you information on all of the subjects. It also has a unique way of getting information and reflecting it to the people who use Wikipedia. In addition, Wikipedia is also growing with new information everyday getting added in. Overall, to research for a topic of any subject, try to use Wikipedia. It’s helpful in many ways.
The introduction of the internet to modern society has brought about a new age of information relation. Since there is no longer a need to wait until the next print day, news from all over the world is available at a person’s fingertips within hours or even minutes of the event. With this advent of such easily accessible information, new problems for the news media have also arisen. Aside from potentially losing good economic standing because newspapers are no longer being purchased in the quantities they used to be, the credibility of the information itself is also put into question. No one would argue that credibility of news sources is unimportant, but there is a discrepancy in what takes precedence; economy and speed or getting the information out correctly at the first publishing by taking the time to make sure all facts are checked. The importance of having a system of checks on all information submitted is paramount. People trust what they read and believe it to be so without always questioning. If all information were to not be checked thoroughly, there would be instances where people read an article only for information included to be wrong and they go on believing such information. This can be very dangerous as misinformed people make misinformed decisions. With an increase in errors being made by citizen bloggers and even major publications, many are worried that journalistic ethics and credibility in the news media are being sacrificed in order to maintain swiftness in the news circuit and to retain personal profits. Though getting information to the masses quickly is a major part of the media’s importance, this should not mean that the credibility of that information being presented should be sacrificed for it...
With the resources and advances in technology that people have today, information can be sent, received, and sent again instantly with just the push of a button. As Loertscher says, getting rid of fake news “is no simple task anymore, since so many people seem to believe whatever they read on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites (44).” The false news is being pushed out into the open and posted for everyone to read, and by that time, it is pushed somewhere else for even more people to read and share. The sharing is an endless cycle and is hard to disrupt. Even if an article which presents inaccurate information is debunked, the damage to the people’s mindsets and views has already been done. There is no reversing that.
The word "wiki" which means "fast" in the Hawaiian language. It is a piece of server software used to create a website that can allow users to freely create and edit by multiple individuals from any web browser. Also, one famous wiki is ]9web-based collaborative encyclopedia called Wikipedia was launched in January 2001. Moreover, Wiki was side-project of Nupedia by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wiki is the most popular on the public web in terms of page views. In addition, wiki is web application that allows multiple people to easily contribute to the same document and they can add, modify, or delete to that document. Moreover, it is server program that allows users to collaborate for forming the content of web site. Also, it can provide many different purposes both public and private such as, editing rights may permit changing, adding or removing content online easily, and knowledge management systems. Moreover, wikis include features such as access rights management and notifications. Also, wiki has management component that allow people to accept or reject changes. Wikis also make it easy to search or browse for information. Although, wikis can also include texts, images, sound recordings and films. Wikis can also be used to record information and serve for course information and knowledge. Therefore, A g...