For authors, researchers, and students looking for effective source material, Wikipedia is best considered as one of several tools, and should never be used as a primary source. Patient and thorough usage is central to the strategies listed below.
Please note: This article is neither an endorsement nor a critique of the Wikipedia website. It is intended only as a list of methods that can be applied to the site’s usage. Those interested in specific criticism or praise of Wikipedia should search elsewhere.
Using Wikipedia as an Aggregator of Sources
Most Wikipedia articles conclude with two sets of links. The first list guides readers to related Wikipedia entries. The second will take readers to external sites which often contain helpful, first-hand information about the subject. As with any research content, the reliability of these sites should be checked rigorously. As a hypothetical example, the external link list in a Wikipedia article on Barack Obama might lead to the President’s official website, an authoritative biographical site, and a site devoted to anti-Obama sentiment.
In addition, properly-written Wikipedia articles contain lists of footnotes. For anyone unfamiliar with footnotes, they are references to the works used in researching a book or article. Wikipedia authors tend to embed links in their footnotes, providing a handy way to access their source material.
Using Wikipedia to Spark Ideas and Develop Concepts
Like many online endeavors, Wikipedia is constantly evolving. Even if it is not used for specific fact-checking, it can serve as a window into cultural, political, and scientific trends. This is due in part to its high volume of pages. If one’s research concerns a notable event or person, Wikipedia is likely to contain more than one page on that subject, or perhaps several pages that at least touch on it. This translates into a spectrum of views that the discerning reader can apply to his or her own project.
Imagine having to write a research paper about the ripple effect of John F. Kennedy’s famous 1961 moon-mission speech. In the process of reading a half-dozen Wikipedia pages, far-flung perspectives could very well emerge. Some entries might emphasize NASA’s accomplishments while others might suggest that going to the moon distracted from more important space goals. This kind of disparity is helpful in developing an authentic thesis for one’s own project.
Using Wikipedia as a Guide to Key Word Searches
Since anyone can register and contribute content to Wikipedia, many of its pages have a large number of authors. Again, this is both a liability and a potential strength. The downside is uneven quality, while the advantage is a rich editorial “gene pool” which often reflects up-to-the-minute thinking on a subject.
Thus, the text of an article can contain highly relevant key words that aren’t obvious to everyone. These can be used to refine a wider Google search. For example, if a student has been assigned Abstract Expressionism as a term-paper subject, a Wikipedia article will probably reveal the roughly equivalent term “action painting” and point out that the flatness of a picture’s surface is a key concept in that style of painting. Within minutes, the student is armed with a rich combination of search terms and is thus better-equipped to find authoritative online sources.
Other Rewarding Uses for Wikipedia
Users familiar with Wikipedia’s “History” and “Discussion” tabs know that they lead to eye-opening back stories behind the articles. Here, contributors discuss and often debate issues connected with a particular topic. Without question, these exchanges provide an additional layer of information and, perhaps, some sense of author integrity.
Wikipedia also offers several different ways to sift through historical dates. For example, readers can easily learn what events occurred on a particular day through the centuries. As stated previously, any individual piece of information must be double-checked with other sources, and the actual benefits of Wikipedia’s timelines and chronologies will vary from user to user. But they can almost certainly aid in some forms of historical research.
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