Why is Wikipedia not a reliable source?

, , Leave a comment

Why is Wikipedia not a reliable source?

Wikipedia is a good source for getting information. But, it is not always that it can be relied upon. Each of the Wikipedia articles has a disclaimer given along with it. It says that the article published may not have accurate information completely. It is important to check the information that we were getting previously. Wikipedia is mostly accurate in giving information but not always reliable enough. In colleges today Wikipedia is not considered as a dependable site and the students are not allowed to keep this site as a citation for source. So, Wikipedia is certainly not the academically reliable and acceptable website.

If you want to collect any technical information, it is better to look for the official site which has the required information written by a credible author. The documentary information and the science books are made to publish. If anyone is in search of information very urgently, he can approach this website to make a start with and later on jump into the links which might lead to other articles. Most of the articles in Wikipedia can be altered by anyone and replace it there. So, information that can mislead exists in this site that was not observed by the experts who actually wrote the article. The information can appear as biased sometimes.

Wikipedia can be used for secondary reference rather than primary. When you are reading a text book or any other published source of information, in order to know further more about it Wikipedia can be visited. Wikipedia can never be used as a compete source for research purpose. It is not that all the information is incorrect in this site. But, incorrect information might be there and hence it is necessary for us to not rely completely on this site.

If the site allows the visitor to just write comment on the articles and not allow him directly to edit the article, it would be better for anyone to rely on the information completely. If the person who is editing is not an expert then it would create a problem to all the people who gets that information in Wikipedia. Taking care of this aspect can make this site comparatively reliable.

Author: Hari M

Facebook Comments
Help us improve. Please rate this article:
 

Leave a Reply