Teachers: Wikipedia is very unreliable *Hands out 25 year old textbooks instead*
Alrighty guys ,gals, and other genders and lack thereof I’m gonna teach ya a thing.
A lot of teachers will go on about not using wikipedia as a source.
“It’s bad,” they say. “I will deduct points if you do it.”
Well wikipedia is actually a great source of information and fuck what your teacher said, you absolutely can use it.
The key though is knowing
A.How to use it.
B. How to source it.
and
C. whether it is good info or trash.
NowFirst Lets look up something on wikipedia. Say your writing a paper on Gregor Mendel and Mendelian Inheritance.
So you zoom over to the Wikipedia page on Mendelian Inheritance.
Now there is a lot of information here. Not all of it is strictly necessary for that essay you are writing. So you read through and suddenly you see something that is good info for your essay.
Boy oh boy this information is useful. To bad your teacher said No Wikipedia Ever.
However there is a loophole.
It’s right there.
No. Go closer.
You see that little four? Its a citation number. Think of wikipedia as it’s own essay. It got it’s information from other sources out there. Just like you are trying to right now. And since there is a citation, it’s going to be listed at the end of the wikipedia article.
Look at citation number 4
Look at that you have your first citation. From Wikipedia.
And look. Do you see it. There is a link. It’s the blue words with the boxy arrow thingamajig.
That thing. Click it.
Why did you leave wikipedia you ask? Wikipedia is great. You have several sources from there. But There is more than what the put in to that wiki article. Those sources Wikipedia gave you are helpful. And now that you are at the source, you can utilize it.
But what if its a book that’s the source.
You can either head to your local library and see if they have it, order it, or avoid the book source. Online sources are just as valuable.
Also do not quote directly from the wikipedia. Quote from the source and then use quote citation.
And MLA citation. Use MLA citation. Since you are linked to the sources cite them. Not the wikipedia.
Your teacher will never know. And now you can finish that sweet essay you got planned.
You’re on your way to greatness.
I would not have been able to write half the papers I have written so far without this method of using Wikipedia lol
No but here’s the thing - this isn’t a CHEAT or a WORKAROUND, this is absolutely legitimate scholarly investigation and research. If you apply this technique to the next level, say you go read that original article from citation [4] and guess what - it will have it’s own citations if it’s a legit scholarly article - you can repeat the process to find othersources they used and go investigate those too for a more well-rounded perspective. And that’s exactly how real scientists (In case you wondered, I have a PhD, so I’m not talking out of my ass here) flesh out their knowledge or relate their work to other work from their peers when they’re writing up their own article on their latest experiment or analysis. And if it’s something they’re not already an expert in, they totally start on Wikipedia or google to get some ideas about what sources are mainstays or counterpoints to some of the stuff they already know. They just also dig into the library’s database of scholarly articles related to those initial ideas.
The important part is that you’ve looked at the thing you’re citing to go - yeah, they did say that in their article and I’ve looked at the context to make sure whoever put it on Wikipedia didn’t put it the wrong way. It’s not cheating. It’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.











