Use Wikipedia
How to Use Wikipedia
Wikipedia is NOT ACCEPTABLE as a research source because it is a general encyclopedia, and because the contents of its articles cannot be verified. However, Wikipedia is useful in other ways:
- You can read a Wikipedia article to get some general information about your topic so that you will have enough clues to know what to look for in other sources.
- You can use the table of contents in a long article to get a sense of how information on this topic is organized. Use the table of contents as a list of subtopics so you know what to look for in your research.
- Use the links and Works Cited at the end of a Wikipedia article to find information on your toic from more reliable sources. It may be true that these sources provide verification for the Wikipedia article, but if that's true, then use those sources in your Works Cited, and not Wikipedia. Even if an article in Wikipedia is correct, it's still a general encyclopedia.
