: Re: Is Wikipedia Trustworthy? So in elementary school, I was told not to use Wikipedia too much because you can't trust what they write. So then for all the projects, I used the Canadian Encyclopedia,

@Lengel543

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The idea that anyone can edit Wikipedia is often put forward as a bad thing, but with Wikipedia it's part of the peer review process and this happens a lot faster than it does with printed encyclopedias.

It also depends how you use it - as Monica mentions, the trick is to treat every page as a piece of journalism, and use it as a starting summary for the references cited - as such, it's a valuable introduction to the concept of critical thinking.

At junior school level teachers are more interested in students' abilities to find the relevant information in accepted reference sources. At further and higher education levels, the idea of questioning any reference source becomes more significant. At that point, the reliability of established reference sources (Canadian, Britannica, etc.) will also be called into question. Several studies have been done comparing Wikipedia with established reference sources - a few are listed here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia), though it's always worth considering the source.

Is it a good place to find information? Yes. Is it a definitive font of all wisdom? No. Will it contain the answers a school teacher wants from their students? Maybe, maybe not - but the text book or other recommended source will.

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