By Stephanie Gale | Observer Reporter
Wikipedia has been a rising controversial topic here at MWCC: should it be a reliable source for papers? Many staff and faculty members say that Wikipedia is an unreliable site that should not be credited as a source by any student.
Wikipedia is known as The Free Online Encyclopedia that any one can edit. “Don’t be afraid to edit” is the phrase used in Wikipedia’s own home page. “You can help Wikipedia by expanding it” is the written text on the bottom of any stub Wikipedia page. Any individual can easily make changes, and their identities can be concealed with a registered IP address, regardless of their credibility.
Our own librarian, Heidi McCann, had a few words to say about Wikipedia and how one can identify a credible source. “There are three things to check,” McCann said. First, “Who wrote it? What makes this person reliable?” Second, “How old is the source?” Third, “Where is the information from?”
McCann suggests other ways of gaining valuable information for written papers. “Using the library resources can be more efficient, because all the articles in the databases are creditable. Plus, they give MLA format for a works cited page.”
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