Wikipedia

[MaSonZ]

He's referring to a historical boo-boo made by Sarah Palin. In an attempt to keep their idol infallible, many Palin supporters edited Paul's page to make Palin's statement appear 100% correct. Quite hilarious, I'll try to find a link to the segment Stephen Colbert did on it.  

[Motherland]

Teachers at my school dont recomend it. my English teacher i believe this year said it was almost as accurate as the Britannica, but i find that hard to believe since anyone can add/remove information.

You have to consider that while a standard Encyclopedia article is written by one person (albeit generally one who is considered an expert on that subject), a Wikipedia article is (generally, of course it depends on the article) the fruit of the labor of dozens of people with precariously low amounts of life, whose hobby it is to literally research and edit Wikipedia articles.

Because of the way it's all advertized, I don't think people realize that much, if not most of Wikipedia is written and edited by people with accounts (there's a lot on Wikipedia that you can't do without an account, and there's a lot even that you can only edit with special permissions), and it's moderated by people who take the job of moderation very seriously (e-peen), and that there are even bots in place (I think? I know some wikis have these) that revert vandalism instantly if it's detected. It's all very well cited, and if you visit one of the discussion pages on a 'more important' article you'll even find arguments over semantics and very specific/borderline silly things.

Wikipedia isn't a bunch of anonymous people randomly farting out articles, it's actually a very tedious thing, and more reliable than people give it credit for. It's still not, of course, the be all end all of sources, but you're better off going to Wikipedia than some random website where someone can write whatever they want.

[Westy]

lol

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/stephen-colbert-proves-sarah-palins-paul-revere-theory-right-28014

[BrownBaron]

lol

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/stephen-colbert-proves-sarah-palins-paul-revere-theory-right-28014

The political nature of Colbert's show (though completely for the sake of humour) has me fearing the ban hammer. Careful with that post, as brilliant as it may be.

[badhorse]

Wikipedia is a great place to start research, it should never be an end all answer for citing sources though.

Yep.  Sums it up nicely.

[guttboy]

Penguin,

Wiki is a good START to research if you are interested in something.  Your summary of Pros/cons is pretty good!

I would NEVER trust a SOLE source of information as gospel.  Call that the scientist/skeptic in me....but if you are casually looking for something of interest to you then by all means use it.  My ONLY caveat is that you research as many options available to you before making a decision.

The internet, or "interweb" LOL as my buddy calls it, has TONS of information; some good, some bad.

In the end, good research/scientific means prove to be a good methodology of forming an argument.

Remember....and this will serve everyone in life.....put away personal biases, pre-determined thoughts, and preferences.......go into ALL things with an open mind and then come up with your own conclusions.  There are MANY examples in science/history when biases have "clouded" judgment and "scientific outcomes"......

Bottom line, use all your resources to help formulate an argument in your own mind....however, be open to any and all contradictions to your opinions and be ready to perhaps change your opinions based on such information!

 

[AAJagerX]

Wikipedia is a great place to start research, it should never be an end all answer for citing sources though.

Spot on.
I've yet to have a college professor allow a source cited from wiki, yet most of them do agree that it can be a good place to start researching. 

[Babalonian]

Ever since the standard of heavy resource citation was adopted by the Wiki community I find it very resourceful and reliable (if you verify the citations).