Auditing a wikipedia article has really opened my eyes to the unreliability of online information. In my honest opinion, Wikipedia should not be used as a scholarly source. Though i'm sure that most information on that website is probably true, scholarly sources must be 100% factual base on the most up to date research. Wikipedia is a like a secondary market of scholarly information. It derives its entries from scholarly articles, and also more dangerously, non scholarly ones.
However, there are a few benefits to using wikipedia as a source on its own. From the experience of this project I have found that Wikipedia had the most comprehensive information from any one article on the subject matter (cloning.)Other websites may have gone more into detail about certain aspects of cloning, like ethics, but wikipedia has a better, global presentation of the topic. For this reason, its biggest advantage, is to use it as a jumping off point to research that should extend beyond online encyclopedias. It will give you an idea of what exactly you want to research, especially on popular and controversial topics. Despite this advantage, Wikipedia is still user generated and information that is displayed is never entirely reliable. Even statements that may be presented as quotes, are sometimes a rewording of the orginal sentence.
Because most people acknowledge these strengths and weaknesses, people may be less gullible and willing to believe news and media. There is so much information out there that is blasted at us, and Wikipedia is a big part of this, that we have no choice but to disregard some of it. This is especially true when you have contradicting information. As a society, we may also be more willing to procrastinate our work, because we know that we have so much potential information on our fingertips. Many people will used Wikipedia as a scholarly source, because it is on the surface of any research in terms of search results.
Before this project, I used to think that Wikipedia entries were populated by the elite college professors. I never actually took a look at the source section. In reality, an extremely large portion of the entry is pulled from other websites and books. Wikipedia just brings all of these sources together, edited by the common person. For me, it has taught to dig deeper when it comes to research, and perhaps use wikipedia only as a jumping off point that will lead to more substantial information.
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