Mgt 521 - Debating the Credibility and Validity of Wikipedia

Debating the Credibility and Validity of Wikipedia

Les Ortiz

MGT/521

September 17, 2012

Dr. Nick Sherwin

Debating the Credibility and Validity of Wikipedia

Wikipedia bills itself as "the free encyclopedia" consisting of articles that "provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information." These articles are "written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who... can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity" (Wikipedia, 2012). This self-description leads to questions regarding the credibility and valididty of its content. A debate held among the members of a University of Phoenix learning team provides insights into this discussion with the inclusion of personal experiences to support or contradict Wikipedia's relaibility.

Arguments

Pro

Propenents of Wikipedia's use cite the website's large and easily available repository of information. Sasha Scott cites the commonality found when comparing the information found on Wikipedia to that on other websites and identifies that "the site is a tertiary source, which means it consists of secondary and primary sources" that can be investigated when a user is skeptical about the data presented. Scott does recognize "that Wikipedia is [not] always a creditable source," believing its "suitability as an academic creditable source depends on what is being cited and for what purpose it is used for" (2012).

Scott's sentiments are echoed by Lisa Williams, who would not use Wikipedia for a professional paper but uses the site regularly as a chemist. The site conveniently provides her with "important information about chemicals... without searching eight different sites." Williams also recognizes the site's limitations but remains confident in the reliability of the data she finds. As a trained professional she would be able to recognize errors "because it would contradict what [she works] on... [but she has] not found any bad or wrong information about chemicals on Wikipedia yet." Though Material Safety Data Sheets are standard documents that provide unquestionable chemical data, for her purposes Wikipedia remains a more effective source to provide information more relevant to her needs (2012).

Con

Whereas Wikipedia is a useful tool for personal use, one where anyone can quickly find information about individuals, historical events, and other subject matter its intrinsic nature fails to guarantee its standing as a credible and valid source of information. The site is based upon individual contributors who may have a particular bias in posting their entries, users who often are not necessarily scholars or otherwise credible experts on the subjects being addressed. Furthermore, the use of primary and secondary sources to support the information presented in Wikipedia entries does not guarantee the validity of data if those sources are also biased or the information contained therein is minconstrued and misrepresented to provide an air authenticity. An article by Greenstein and Zhu points to the results of a study that sampled "28 thousand entries about US political topics" which showed "that Wikipedia contains a bias, and the level or direction of bias is not