Using Wikipedia to Write Your Academic Paper

Wikipedia is probably the largest knowledge base in the world. It has millions of entries on every subject you can think of. At first glance, there’s no reason to doubt the information’s accuracy or reliability because it’s presented in a way that looks like it was written by a scholar. Many students take the information there at face value, which often gets them in trouble with their schools. Most professionals who you ask to write my essay know too well not to trust the information on Wikipedia.

The issue is that, because Wikipedia is a “free encyclopedia,” anyone in the world is able to sit down at their own computer and add to the site’s general body of knowledge. Wikipedia’s policy on contributors is as follows: “Almost anyone can edit almost any article at any time, even without logging in.” So, the main problem with using this source is that you don’t know if the information is true or not.

The reliability of the information is one of the most important parts of academic writing. Every claim in an article needs to be backed up by evidence. Such evidence should be backed up by the research data gathered during an academic investigation, which must be done according to a set of rules. 

Coming back to the “free encyclopedia,” there have been many times when online information that is free for anyone to use has led students astray. Since it is “inappropriate for scholarly writing,” teaching institutions have blacklisted this resource from reliable information sources. If your school hasn’t explicitly forbidden using this source of information, there is probably an unwritten rule to stay away from it, so make sure before you start writing. Wiki’s exclusion from academic settings may seem bad, but things are not always as bad as they may seem. Always confirm with your essay writer if they make use of Wiki when researching information for your essays.

Know how to use It correctly; look for primary sources 

Wiki tries to cite sources to back up its claims, just like a “regular” encyclopedia does, to give them more weight. There is a special “References” section that is present in the vast majority of the articles, and it is very similar to the “References” page of any scholarly entry. 

In the “References” section of the “free encyclopedia,” there are links to scholarly works (essays, research, etc.) as well as less reliable sources like blogs, websites, forums, etc., in contrast to a well-known scholarly source. If you look through the “References” section of Wiki, you should be able to quickly find some first-hand information for your assignment. You’ll probably get a nice list of primary sources to use as a result.

Primary sources are the kinds of information that give the actual research results. They usually have all the parts of a scientific paper, like an abstract, literature review, methods, results, discussion, etc.  You should be looking at material like this; open the references and read the abstracts to see whether they satisfy your requirements. 

Students work with us.payforessay.net because they know too well not to trust the information available on Wiki. The writers steer clear of such sources when writing any academic paper.

Once you’ve located what you need, you should look at the article’s “References” section and try to hunt them up online. In the second step of the reference analysis in your paper, you will find the information you need to write your paper. References are frequently provided in text format rather than the convenient hypertext format. 

In such an instance, go ahead and copy details like the author’s name, the publication’s name, and the date in order to conduct an online search. In eight (8) out of ten (10) situations, you’ll probably locate the article you’re looking for.

How to Cite Wikipedia?

You are not authorized to quote Wikipedia in a scientific paper. That concludes the story. In order to properly cite this information, you must not use Wikipedia itself but rather the original main source. For instance, if you are writing about diabetes mellitus and you need to discuss the role of statins as the cause of diabetes, go ahead and select the reference that is listed next to the phrase “statins”; you will find that it contains a reference to a study by Sattar, Price et al. (2010). By doing this, you are providing references to trustworthy information sources to support each claim you make. 

The “free online encyclopedia” is a good source of secondary information, but it shouldn’t be used in academic writing. It can be very helpful when you are doing preliminary research and looking for research results and scholarly investigations that other scholars have already done. You can find a good deal of trustworthy “first-hand” information with reliable sources and writers by just reading the Wiki article’s references section. Citing primary sources is a good idea and won’t cause any problems since directly citing Wikipedia is not allowed.