this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2022
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Technology

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[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 years ago

It's the same in law and the social sciences that I'm familiar with. It's not improved. I would avoid Wikipedia if possible and recommend that any students avoid it, too.

If the only problem was that it was too, say, general, as in, misses out some details or nuances, that would be forgivable. More often than not, if you know the area well, you'll see that Wikipedia is simply wrong.

Any undergrad paper that cites Wikipedia will be lucky to pass. Not because Wikipedia is cited per se, but because it's usually incorrect. A paper that cites a Wikipedia article as a reliable source usually also contains other significant errors or omissions. If a paper relies on Wikipedia it is probably not relying on other, more appropriate sources, and if it did rely on those other sources, the author would have known not to cite Wikipedia.