Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia have been compared to Encyclopaedia Britannica with much controversy. People have questioned Wikipedia’s reliability and accuracy (Giles, 2006). Due to Wikipedia’s unusual and forward move that allows anyone to edit information on the encyclopaedia have caused its reliability to be in question.
PERSONAL IDEA
However, I truly enjoy using Wikipedia as a point of reference as informations are always up-to-date. The information are also constantly edited and cited. Therefore, I personally feel that it is a good place to start reading about something. After all, any form of reading or research requires a lot more reading than simply from one source. Therefore, it would not be harmful to use Wikipedia as long as more readings are done to garner more perspective.
REPORT BY ‘NATURE’
Coming back to the accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia, a research report by Nature have concluded that the difference in accuracy between Wikipedia and Britannica, is actually not that big. In fact, when compared, Wikipedia had 4 inaccuracies where Britannica had 3 inaccuracies (Giles, 2006). This is actually quite stunning considering the standard of Britannica which has been considered top-notch; and the only slight difference with Wikipedia makes Wikipedia seems somewhat reliable.
WIKIPEDIA ACCURACY & USABILITY
No doubt Wikipedia’s editing element is flawed by ‘fake professors’ or uncredited contributors, this research results by ‘Nature’ have somewhat thrown the Wikipedia’s inaccuracy idea. It is constantly being edited and its accuracy is there. Combined with its hypertext and links to other articles and citations on the net, this multimodal (Walsh, 2006) design of encyclopaedia can be beneficial if used properly. Therefore, I feel that Wikipedia is usable and reliable.
References:
Giles, J 2006, ‘Internet encyclopaedias go head to head’, viewed 5 June 2007; [internet], http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html.
Walsh, M 2006, ‘The textual shift’, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp.24-37, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.
