Wikipedia Review
Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few years, then you probably have at least heard about Wikipedia. I’m willing to bet that you may have even resorted to using it when you didn’t know something. This review will look at the good and the bad features of Wikipedia. The internet might be the biggest collection of information anywhere on the planet, but finding it can be difficult. Wikipedia brings together different sources to provide a single resource as an encyclopedia.
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a huge online encyclopedia with a difference. Rather than being written by professors and people who get paid for the articles, it is written by people like you and me. Wikipedia is a community project and this means that anyone is free to edit and add content. This content will then get reviewed by other members which should ensure accuracy. Of course, this doesn’t always happen, especially on some topics.
Who Uses Wikipedia?
Anyone who needs to research virtually anything will find Wikipedia very useful. This is a simple and easy to use site which contains lots of valuable information.
Using Wikipedia
Using Wikipedia is very simple. All you need to do is connect to the internet and visit www.wikipedia.org. It will open the English language site by default, although it is possible to select different languages including Chinese, Japanese and Russian among many others.
Finding articles is as simple as typing in what you are looking for and clicking the search button. You will then see a list of articles which match your search terms and clicking on each one will allow you to read the article.
Cost of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is completely free to use. Even the Smartphone and tablet apps are free. Wikipedia survives on donations and they do regularly ask people to make a donation. However, there is no requirement to donate anything. You can continue using Wikipedia without paying anything.
From a free service offering lots of very useful information, you will find it difficult to find a reason not to visit.
Wikipedia Requires Spec
Wikipedia is available on any computer regardless of the operating system or browser used. All modern versions of web browsers should be fully compatible with Wikipedia. It will also display largely the same on all computers.
The apps to access Wikipedia do require different things depending on the app you are choosing. For example the Android app requires Android 2.1 or higher.
How to Access Wikipedia
Wikipedia can be accessed in any web browser by simply visiting www.wikipedia.com. It is also possible to download Wikipedia applications for smart phones and tablets. These can make it even easier to find out about all sorts of different topics.
Wikipedia is available in countries all around the world. It was blocked for a time in China, but now seems to be available again.
Wikipedia – Accuracy/Quality of Articles
One of the best features of Wikipedia is also the biggest problem. Wikipedia allows anyone to write and edit articles. However this means that anyone is able to write pretty much whatever they like. This does mean that there are some quite obvious mistakes included in Wikipedia articles. It’s not advised to use this for homework or university research. Although, it is a good starting point to help you decide which areas to focus on.
Most of the fats in Wikipedia articles are backed up with references. This means that you can rely on some of the information if you are willing to follow the links to find out more. As long as you don’t only use Wikipedia for research and you use other sources at the same time then you shouldn’t run into problems. A warning though – Teachers and Lecturers do not appreciate writing down Wikipedia as a source, it’s better to go to the real source and use that as your quotation.
There is plenty of information available on most topics; however, not everything has enough information. Some are left as stubs which then need to be fleshed out by other people.
Wikipedia Verdict
Wikipedia is the place to go to if you want to know the answer to any question. You can quickly and easy search for information about brands, companies, TV shows and anything else you might be interested in. If you often ask lots of questions then you will find Wikipedia is a godsend. You can find out about everything you want without needing to risk annoying people by asking lots of questions.
Wikipedia is certainly one of the most popular sites on the internet. Although they probably shouldn’t lots of kids also base their homework solely on the information included in Wikipedia. With so many articles on such a diverse range of different subjects, you would be hard pushed to find more information anywhere else.