Chris Hayes
10/4/12
Why Wikipedia is not a good source to use in a research paper
When writing research papers it is suggested that you do not use Wikipedia as a source
for information, and you wonder why that is. It is because Wikipedia does not have accurate
information that has actually been studied. Most of the information on Wikipedia is biased and
opinion based because it is a free space website where anyone can write and edit anything. For
example, in one of the videos from Colbert Nation, Colbert mentioned that on Wikipedia it states
that in Africa the elephant population has doubled. Then after asking viewers to change it, he
noticed the statement was changed to “Thanks to Colbert, the elephant population in Africa has
now tripled.”
It is best to evaluate the websites you use because the website may not be legit or what
you expect them to be. Some can be hoax websites, for advertisement, for open opinions, and
sites with real information like the ones showed in the Evaluating Web Sites video. If you pay
attention to things like the name of the website and the intro to a website you will be able to
determine if the site can be trusted or not.