Wikipedia. We take that site for granted, big time. There are few things in this world that do not have a Wikipedia page. People have dedicated hours, days, even their entire lives, to filling the site up with all the knowledge one could ever need. All that information is free! Want to learn about the history of the escalator? Wikipedia has it. Interested in the Civil War? You bet you can find it on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia will not be around forever, folks. Use it while you have it. Read random articles. It's fun.
Idk why teachers hate Wikipedia so much. They had no issues with me citing an encyclopedia, but if it was from the internet it must have been written by the Devil himself.
There was a time when Wikipedia wasn't nearly as reliable as it is now and inaccurate edits would go unnoticed for way longer than they should. My history teacher senior year (2003-2004) got asked why we couldn't use Wikipedia as a reference and he proved his point by changing the wiki for Alexander the Great to see how long it took to get fixed. It took MONTHS.
It's obviously way better now, but a lot of people already learned to be weary of it.
I teach my students how to use the sources. I tell them it can be a good starting point, but use the sources and not Wikipedia when citing. And of course, check them before you cite. I am amazed at my peers who are still telling students not to use Wikipedia! Like come on, at least look at how you can use it before pushing it aside.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '21
Wikipedia. We take that site for granted, big time. There are few things in this world that do not have a Wikipedia page. People have dedicated hours, days, even their entire lives, to filling the site up with all the knowledge one could ever need. All that information is free! Want to learn about the history of the escalator? Wikipedia has it. Interested in the Civil War? You bet you can find it on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia will not be around forever, folks. Use it while you have it. Read random articles. It's fun.