10 Steps to Evaluate a Wikipedia Article

Wikipedia can be a lot of fun to browse. But what about using it for serious research? In April 2007 the Pew/Internet & American Life Project published a study that reported 36% of adults have used Wikipedia. Additionally, Wikipedia is the most accessed reference site for educational and research purposes, and Alexa.com continually ranks Wikipedia in the top ten accessed Web sites -- sharing the top with Google, Yahoo, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and others. But should you use it for research? Well, a lot of this depends on what kind of research you're doing and how you use Wikipedia. Take a look at the following ten tips for how to evaluate and use Wikipedia articles.

1. Be critical and smart when using information resources.

   Whenever approaching any information resource: think about it. Even better, interrogate it. To get started use some of the following questions: Does it have reason to be biased? What doesn't the article cover? Is this important? And, what does the style of writing tell me about the author?




2. What is the protection status of an article?

   Articles can be given a certain level of protection that restricts the editing of an article. The two most important levels of protection are Semi-Protection and Full Protection. Semi-protection requires a user account that is at least four days old to edit an article. No anonymous edits are allowed. Full Protection prevents editing from anyone except Wikipedia administrators. Protection is used in Wikipedia, primarily, to restrict vandalism.




3. Look for template messages or for featured article status.

   Users can place messages on an article indicating problems with citations, style, Wikipedia policies, i.e., neutral point of view coverage (NPOV), and more. For examples of different messages, look up template messages in Wikipedia. Also, articles can receive a status of "featured" (look for a star on the top right side), which indicates that they have met certain Wikipedia standards of excellence.




4. Does the article have citations for its assertions and facts?

   Pay attention to the hyperlinked footnotes throughout the article. Are important assertions being cited and what are those sources? If sources are available, check to see if they are being cited properly. Some sources will be considered more authoritative than other sources, but the type of sources chosen, as well as the quantity available, will depend upon the article. A topic from popular culture, like the character Pikachu from Pokemon, would have very different types of sources than an article on a U.S. President. And, likewise, many more authoritative resources will be available to authors writing about a U.S. President.




5. Check the edit history of the article.

   Every article in Wikipedia has an edit history. Look for the tab labeled "History" at the top on the article. The quantity of edits over a period of time will be an indication of how much effort has been put into constructing the article. Likewise, you can choose to look at the article from any point in its edit history and view a note about what changes were completed. This can be a good way to determine whether an article may have been vandalized before you decided to use it.




6. Has an edit to a Wikipedia article been made anonymously?

   The edit history provides either an IP address or a username for each edit to an article. Although, we should always question the accuracy of any contribution, we should ask whether it matters that the contribution was made anonymously. Every contributor will bring a different level of bias and experience to an article. However, by making a contribution anonymously, it becomes more difficult to evaluate these levels. Note that with IP sniffing some addresses can be traced back to their owning organization. So edits done anonymously from IP addresses within Microsoft, the CIA, etc, do tell us something about the contributor.




7. If an edit isn't anonymous, check out the User's page.

   User pages will list the user's contributions, but sometimes they tell us about the user, his or her age, interests, level of education and experience and more. Find the User's page by clicking on the username found in the edit history. Again, be critical, you can't always trust virtual identities.




8. When viewing the edit history of an article, look for a diversity of contributors.

   Most articles will benefit from a diversity of contributions. Articles in print encyclopedias often draw upon one expert. But with most subjects there are many different ways to approach a subject. This is true even amongst experts. Still this doesn't mean that every viewpoint is of equal value, what it does mean is that information gathered from multiple sources is usually more well-rounded and informed. Think of a research paper for school that had 2 sources versus another one with 20 sources, which paper do you think would be better?




9. Read the Discussion Notes.

   Click on the "Discussion" tab at the top of the article for a background on the article's content. The background discussion of an article can provide a lot of important information about the article. For example, it can provide the reasons why an article was written the way it was. The Discussion notes include challenges, ongoing debates, as well as discussions about possible additions and improvements.




10. Think about how the information will be used.

    Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. General and specialty encyclopedias are good for finding information quick. They are also a good place to start for a research project. But they are meant to be an introduction to your subject, not the final word. Generally, encyclopedias are not good resources to cite. Good research requires comparing multiple primary and secondary resources critically.