What's worse: For Dummies books, or Wikipedia?

Definitely Wikipedia is worse. We all know how unreliable and inaccurate Wikipedia is: errors range the gamut from insidiously plausible falsehoods to blatantly ridiculous falsehoods, not to mention typos. Plus the writing is dull and pedantic to boot; Wikipedia often prefers bulleted lists when it would make more sense to present the information as paragraphs.

With the Dummies books, and its competitors, the Complete Idiot's Guides, there's just the typos to worry about, and the words flow so much better. For example, in "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin," the authors identify some composers of Latin mass settings: Hayden [sic] and Dvorak [also sic]. Though I suppose that mistake is forgivable in that book, as it wouldn't in "Classical Music for Dummies."

I don't intend to let the Dummies and Idiot's books off the hook, however. In simplifying the information, they often oversimplify things or explain them weirdly. It's not that I need to know every single exception, nuance and caveat there is, but it would be nice to know when things are not as cut and dry as one would like to think.

Some of the pedagogical decisions made in those books seem to assume that the reader is completely incapable of long-term memory. In "Spanish for Dummies," almost every single Spanish phrase is spelled 'phonetically' in English, as if the reader was incapable of memorizing a pronunciation guide from Chapter 1. And I couldn't find a single Chinese character in "Chinese for Dummies" (though in fairness that was from a bookstore skimming). Maybe in the very short term you don't want to scare learners with complicated-looking characters, but someone going to China equipped only with a Dummies book will almost certainly have to fall back on his English, which I suppose is just fine if he doesn't go too far afield from the major cities.

I think that ultimately the Dummies approach only works for computer topics for basic users. If you just need Microsoft Word to type up essays and make the occasional flier, then "Word for Dummies" will be quite sufficient. But those who need to do mail merges, furigana, citation software interfacing, and other such advanced topics, will need something a little bit more in depth.

Wow, what a great bunch of answers you've received. Stipulate that you don't want Wikipedia answers and all of a sudden you get real historians answering your question. Well, I'm only a student of history, but it's 20th century American and European history that I lean toward (actually, post 1945 US/Euro - Soviet relations and foreign policy), but let me add my two cents as well (which will only be one "worst president", because everyone else has given such good answers!). 1. James Buchanan. I mean, let's face it, this guy basically caused the Civil War (to happen when it did). He supported Popular Sovereignty in the South, the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas, and seven states had seceded before he was even out of office (and he had no plan for that, either!). Good luck!

For dummies is definitely better, Wikipedia can have false information sometimes, because anyone can edit it. So if you want to know things for free, use Wikipedia as they are usually correct, or if you want PERFECT information, with no chance of false information, get for dummies.

This isn't really a fair question. Wikipedia isn't in the business of providing "simplified" in-depth informational references or supplements to (or replacements for) existing product-reference manuals. There's a separate Wikimedia wiki called "Wikibooks" that does some of that, though it's not all that active.

Having said that, IDM (the company that publishes the "...For Dummies" books) is better at what it does than Wikipedia is at what it does - there are consistent editorial standards applied, professional peer review and proofreading, and the publisher is identifiable and accountable for what the company produces, none of which is true of Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia has effectively zero time-to-publish, and none of the space limitations implied by paper publishing (those things are both good and bad, of course). Corrections can be made more easily on Wikipedia, but then again, so can mistakes.

Wikipedia is very good at amassing pop-culture trivia and, to some extent, general-purpose facts, and while none of it is "reliable," that's usually not an issue for non-controversial and non-biographical topics. More to the point, though, relatively few Wikipedia writers are interested in simplifying the topics they write about (though there are exceptions), even if it's to make obviously complex concepts understandable to the layman.

There's a page on what a "perfect" WP article should look like, which does suggest that articles should be "understandable," but it's hardly a top priority compared to, say, revenge-grabbing potential, attention-getting potential, and territorial-gain potential.

As wikipedia is a site which anyone can contribute to i'd have to say wiki as the dummies books are written by experts.

For Dummies, hands down. Wikipedia is glorious, holy and infallible. For Dummies books are written by idiots looking for quick profits. Wikipedia is written by divinely inspired, altruistic prophets.

For dummies is much more accurate and can be gotten at the library. Wikipedia would be the worst since many people play pranks and mess things up by editing.

I like Wikipedia better cause it's free. But For Dummies probably has more info and probably is more reliable

Wikipedia is worse. You cite Wikipedia, the teacher tears you a new one. You cite a Dummies book, they go "Eh."

I have Islam for Dummies. It's a pretty good book. Wikipedia is pretty good too but has much more information.