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Top Ten Reasons Students Cannot Cite Or Rely On Wikipedia

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Buddha once said, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Thousands of years later this is still relevant and gives an important to today’s youth: don’t believe everything you hear. Today, many adolescents use websites like Google and Wikipedia to help them research for any projects. They see it as a quick way to answer any question because all they have to do is type in the question and write down what the screen tell them. Little do they know, they could be writing down false evidence simply because they trusted the internet. Wikipedia is not appropriate for academic research because it can be edited and posted by anyone and false information can stay on the site for months before being corrected.…show more content…
According to the article, “Top Ten Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely on Wikipedia” written by Mark E. Moran, an Irish student by the name of Shane Fitzgerald posted a fake quotation on a Wikipedia article about a deceased French composer named Maurice Jarre. Later, Fitzgerald was startled to learn that several major newspapers picked up the quote and published it in obituaries, confirming his suspicions of the questionable ways in which journalists use websites, and Wikipedia, as a reliable source. This proves that, while the person behind the screen publishing this article may know it is false, it can appear just as trustworthy as any other fact in the article. It also says in the article “Warming Up to the Culture of Wikipedia” by Noam Cohen, “...many curators are suspicious of a site where anyone can create and edit an article, and where the assertions of expertise are greeted with skepticism or, at best, a shrug.” This shows that it is not only some schools that may fear inaccurate evidence, but that museums are also skeptical of websites like
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