Wikipedia is a literal treasure trove of information. In this day and age, where the internet is chock full of porn, meme’s, and photos of Barack Obama skateboarding and holding nunchucks in-front of a helicopter exploding , it’s a nice change to have somewhere where you can go and learn about millions and millions of things that you are actually interested in, instead of having mostly useless information force fed to you at school. However, like any hero, whether it’s human or technological, there are always haters. If I had a nickel for every authority figure that has ever told me not to use Wikipedia because it is Satan reincarnated in pure HTML form, I would have a satchel full of nickels both large and heavy enough to seriously kill someone if I was to swing it around and around in a violent manner above my head. Who would hate on Wikipedia? you might ask. Why would they try and bring down such a wonderful and knowledgeable website? Well, the answer is very simple. They are d-bags. And the d, if you didn’t know, stands for douche.
The hater’s main argument, and only real argument, is that Wikipedia is not a ‘respectable’ information source, or that it’s ‘full of lies’ simply because anyone can edit it. Well I’m here to prove them wrong, and give you the upper hand when you are doing any sort of online research assignment. Firstly, I want to show you a picture that will quite obviously both blow and boggle your mind at the same time:
You see that? Those conveniently highlighted superscript numbers enclosed in square brackets are called references, and they are here to help you! You see, it’s sad to say it, but Wikipedia isn’t 100% accurate. There are millions of stunned children around the world that can throw up any kind of crack-speak into Wikipedia, and although the Wikipedian moderators try their best to keep these garbage spewing kids out, there is undoubtedly some false information that seeps through. However, there is a surefire way to double check for this legitimacy, and it’s called references! You see, those itsy bitsy numbers are actually links. If you were to click on them, they will bring you to the very bottom of the page where you can see another link. This link, however, goes straight to a source!
That’s right folks, a source. This six-lettered ‘S’ word is something that teachers everywhere can appreciate. Basically, it gives you direct access to the article or website that the user took the information from. In other words, it’s your portal to a legit bibliography! Instead of putting down Wikipedia as your source of information, you can simply put down this other link and BAM, your teacher/professor is content.
There, that was easy wasn’t it? Now stop bitching that you failed your English paper because your teacher didn’t like that you used Wikipedia’s list of zombie films when describing the past and present Canadian funeral rites and customs.
