An online encyclopedia that allows anyone to create or edit articles.
Encyclopedia-style entries and information.
Can be a great place to do background research on a topic
All articles include a list of references that can be used for further research
User-edited, meaning information may not always be accurate.
Quality can vary widely from excellent in one article to very poor or incomplete in the next.
Simple to search – just look up a topic and find the entry.
Best results when searching for a topic, rather than research on a topic.
No results returned for original search – this does not mean that there is no information available on this topic.
There may be relevant information included in one of these results, so it is a good idea to browse through these articles.
Citations are located at the bottom of each article, look at these to judge the credibility of information.
Wikipedia articles are all laid out the same: the title and a short introduction are at the top of the page.
A table of contents is located a bit further down the page. Items can be clicked if you would like to jump to a specific section. On the right there is usually a box with an image and some key facts about the topic.
Articles usually have links to other articles right in the text. The small numbers beside different parts of the text correspond to the references.
References are located at the bottom of each article. The numbers found match those found in the text. You can use these titles to do a search in a database.
In the Talk tab of a Wikipedia page you will often find lively debate about the content.Authors leave notes for each other about the changes they've made to the content and they debate about how the information should be presented. Unlike the main article page, the Discussion page is the for personal opinion.
By looking through the Talk, you can sometimes learn just as much about the sensitive areas of a topic
Wikipedia provides ratings for its pages at the top of the Talk page. These ratings can help you to judge if the overview of the topic and the resources it lists in references are in good standing and have been reviewed by Wikipedia.
