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Argumentative Essay: Is Wikipedia An Unreliable Source?

1322 Words6 Pages

Efficiently Using Wikipedia When there is a murder case, there are normally many suspects involved in this case. Quite frequently, people who are close to the one murdered are looked into. But, if someone is wrongly reported as being accused, it can damage one’s whole life. This happened to John Seigenthaler. He was wrongly accused on Wikipedia of being a murder suspect. This begs the question: is Wikipedia a reliable source? It is banned from some schools, even though that might be the wrong approach. Controversial topics are used when writing argumentative papers. For example, a debate going on right now is the legalization of marijuana. Someone writing a paper on this could go to Wikipedia’s page titled “Legality of Cannabis.” Here is …show more content…

In the situations involving Messer-Kruse and Seigenthaler, the Wikipedia pages in question list the resources used in the article. This shows where the information was obtained, and typically contains a link to allow the reader to gather further information if desired. Seeing from Messer-Kruse’s experience, users are not allowed to edit the article without reliable sources given. Then, other users, not paid workers, monitor the site to make sure the information put on the website follows the guidelines. Wikipedia will give the researcher an overview of the topic but then it lists additional sources to support the article’s validity and reliability. This also helps with the context of the information and quotes so the researcher is able to get their own opinion on them. Besides providing a list of reliable resources, Wikipedia articles are designed with a structured format that one can use a guide in certain situations. For example, if a travel agency was creating a brochure about vacationing on a tropical island, they might consider utilizing Wikipedia to use as an overview to ensure all major topics are covered on the brochure. Another example might include a college student preparing an essay on the rain forest. While this is a broad topic, the student could refer to the Wikipedia article for ideas on how to narrow the topic and organize the research

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