How reliable are online sources? An online source that many people use is wikipedia.com. The problem with this web-site is that anyone can edit any article. Because of this, the articles may contain false information. An example is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Some had changed the article so that it said that the author wrote pronographic material for sailors. The people in charge of wikipedia.com found this problem and fixed it. However, this took quite some time so many people may have used the false information. Because of situations like this,do you believe students should be allowed to use wikipedia as a valid source for information and research?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne
8 comments:
Yes I do. I believe that students should be allowed to use the wikipedia site as a reference because there is false information on almost all websites. Anyone who has the knowledge can create a website and can say anything that they want. Therefore, they may write there paper on George Washinton and say that he chopped down an apple tree as a young boy. Since most people have grown up hearing this story, most people would believe that fact. However, the cherry tree incident never really happened. So if someone wants to not allow students to use wikipedia as a reliable source, then almost every website should be banned as well.
Wikipedia may have false information at times, but honestly so do many other sites. The main point here is that wikipedia themselves were able to find the problem and fix the situation. Sure it may have taken some time to learn this but think of all the other information that wikipedia has for users. I think it would be a pretty hard job to keep up with no matter who you are. There site should not be discredited for someone elses wrong doing on trying to be funny or make a joke. It's not like the information was placed there intentionally to give those who use wrong information.
This should not stop students from being able to use this as a reliable site because for the most part, it gives the facts. Any website could come up with the same problem with the technology today and the access that some people can gain uses the internet. So if that is the case than I'm sure in the future there will be no online sources reliable. Regardless of the issue of false information we should think of all the other information this site, and others, have to offer. Is that really something we should give up as students?
I agree that there are plenty of unreliable sources that only mislead students from the truth and make them look ridiculous on their papers, but there are also a lot of good sites that give me a source of relief. I think it all depends on where you get your info from, and what i do is look at other sites to see if the information all matches up, to limit the false sites. All in all, it is your own responsibility to make sure you have the right source, but as long as it is legit, there should be no problem.
I also would have to agree srtudents should be able to use wikipedia as a valuale source because just like other sources some of the information might be false but i'ts a persons opinion that also deserves t be valued and taken into consideration.
It is true that many other websites have worse information, and that the only way to try to separate fact from opinion/fiction is to cross check your references. This brings up the debate about using obscure facts in papers that you have only found once. There are many reasons that obscure facts would only be found in one place, unable to be cross checked. Should you use these facts that you find only once, in one place or not?
There seems to be alot more information on wikipedia than other sites even though some isn't very truthful. I agree with the other comments that students should be allowed to use this site. Most of it is usually true and it should be their decision whether they should use it or not because it is their responsibility to retrieve the right information.
I am for and against the use of wikipedia being allowed as a source for student research papers. I am for it because true there are alot of other sites that also contain false information; Howwever, I am against the use of wikipedia depending on the use of. If it is being used to veryify a definition, that is ok, but if you have a paper on a specific person, nine times out of ten, wikipedia is not going to give you enough information anyway.S o you will still have to go to another site. So basically I am indiffernet about the website or any website.
ya i do think they should let students use wikipedia, only because sure some people might write false information but i mean almost all the information i have ever had to find or research has been correct. Also its not like thats only only source many people would use so other references would make it easier to tell whats right and wrong on a site by comparing them to other sites. also so from person to just write false information so others would get confused is kinda sad and they have a lot of time on their hands to just go and do this.
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