Some colleges are prohibiting the use of citing Wikipedia articles as a legitimate source in research papers. What are your thoughts?
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delete me plz
ANSWERS: 5
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I think that is a wise decision. Wikipedia can be a great tool, but since users can modify the articles, I think schools are right not to allow them. The students could be using wiki and getting the wrong information. Also, anyone using wikipedia should always check the validity of the data with another source, if they plan on using it for such a purpose. Then , the verification source can be used as a reference!
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A source is a source is a source.
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Personally, I have to agree with The Evil Audiotron. However, there is another thing that I should point out to you. Not only has Wikipedia been shown to be not entirely reliable, but the system of allowing it's users to edit entries also opens it up to manipulation. I would not put it past some students to alter entries on Wikipedia to suit their own purposes. So, while you might use Wikipedia as a starting point, I would recommending checking out the primary sources on which the articles are based to see if they are credible. If they are, then use them as references rather than Wikipedia for any serious scholarly works.
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Wikipedia has never been a reliable source and, by it's nature, cannot be.
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I never use WIKI as a source, it is quite easy to edit the info and get wrong information. I saw a case where these two guys changed the map of their country and included a third country as part of their territory, this brought a lot of trouble at a political level, it was a real mess but the Q&A site also got in trouble.
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