Is wikipedia a reliable source?

The answer is "sometimes WikiPedia is reliable; sometimes it it not."

I'm disappointed that your instructor didn't take advantage of the teachable moment to instruct you on "reliable sources; locating and evaluating sources of information."

Generally, reliable sources are peer reviewed. That is, experts in the field have the opportunity to question the validity of the information therein and verify it. WikiPedia is subject to peer review. Whether or not you consider the general public experts in every field is the issue. In my experience, people who are not experts often think that they are. On the other hand, some of the more esoteric pages in WikiPedia don't attract the general public. Some of them may be more reliable than others.

For school papers, my recommendation is to use WikiPedia as a starting point and verify anything you use in your paper in additional sources. You can certainly *CITE* WikiPedia; be sure to cite the other sources as well. It's okay to have multiple verifying citations--or citations of conflicting information (a police report will have statements from as many witnesses as can be rounded up and persuaded to give a statement--and they often conflict; the jury gets to decide whom to believe).

BTW, all sorts of "reliable" sources have erroneous information. Information is misquoted, attributed to the wrong source, made up, and just plain wrong. Check out how many times in the past 50 years there have been hoaxes perpetrated in print, how many times awards have had to be returned, and how many times otherwise reliable publications have had to admit that they were fooled. And published photos don't always show what they purport to show.

P.S. When in doubt about the reliability of a source of information, enlist the assistance of a reference librarian. Verifying sources is their job, and they're good at it.

No, on wikipedia, every page can be edited by anyone. So you could get false info. Thats not a reliable site. A good source might be worldbookonline. They have real peopple who study the things doing the articles.Thats reliable. Also to your last one, yes I think so.

Wikipedia is a good starting point, but is not a reliable source. Anyone can edit wiki and while there are checks in place these are not foolproof. Use it as a starting point to research further but don't ever believe it 100%.

I take wikipedia to be a reliable source. Sorry your teacher questioned your source. It would depend on the topic as well..

Almanacs would be another source to use.

Try the newspaper/magazine as your third.

if you notice in the bottom. wikipedia is a cited website. so if your using anything from wikipedia thats already cited then use their cites not wiki... if you get what im saying.

and try using other internet websites.

yeah a mag and a news paper can be counted as a third.

wikipedia is quite a reliable source,i search up almost everything there,recent events to medical stuffs.its quite reliable(for me)

most teachers dun like it cause it can be modified by users,which they feel is not a gd source.try to research more to support the facts on the wikipedia page.

No, no, no, never cite Wikipedia as a source.

wikipedia is not 100% accurate as anyone can write in it.

its pretty reliable though, i use it all the time!

and i think mags and papers would count as a source.

hope i helpled!

Im not sure. It is mostly accurate, but members of the public can edit the page when they want, and add or delete details.

for me wikipedia is a very good source and i would donate for them because i've always found what i wanted to know. i don't know what others think and i also don't know if u'll trust what i've said before but i love wiki.