If you've ever used a search engine like Yahoo or Google to find out about a topic, there's a good chance that one of the first search results you get will be a page from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is published in numerous languages and is edited and updated by its users. Overall, it is a fantastic site that quickly delivers the information you need, but like anything, it has its pluses and minuses.

The best part about Wikipedia is that it has a very large, broad selection of articles to choose from, and using the search function finds them very quickly. It also has hyperlinks to other Wikipedia pages that you can use to learn more about terms that you may not be familiar with. For example, let's say you are reading an article about John F. Kennedy, and you come accross the "Bay of Pigs". If you don't know what it is, you can very easily click that link, find out about the Bay of Pigs, and go back to the Kennedy article. In addtion to the internal Wikipedia links, it also has lots of links to external sites. Best of all, you can become an editor for pages in which you feel that you have special expertise. There are also forums where you can discuss these changes.

As great as Wikipedia is, it does have its detractors. There has been criticism that certain entries have been written by people who have a vested interest in a particular topic. For example, a company could write a Wikipedia entry that is highly complimentary to themselves, or on the other hand, highly critical of a competitor. Editors are always on the look-out for biased articles, but as you can imagine, policing a site as large as Wikipedia can be dificult. Another problem with Wikipedia is the anonymity of its writers. Who wrote the entries, and do they really know what they're talking about? Are they writing from a biased perspective? You don't really know. You just have to go with your gut and trust the reviewers.

Despite the criticisms from its detractors, Wikipedia is a valuable site that I use often. If I need a great deal of in-depth information about a topic, I would use Wikipedia as a starting point, but I would definitely not use it as my sole source of information. I also wouldn't rely on it as part of serious academic research. With that said, if you are curious about something and you need a quick answer, then Wikipedia is for you!

Learn more about this author, Damien Baldino.
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