How to use Wikipedia for initial research

How do we go about doing research? If our Science teacher asks us to research about global warming, what do we do? Visiting the library and searching for books about the topic is always a good idea. However, with the technology available to us, it is easier to just log on to the World Wide Web and search for information there.

One of my favorite online destinations for research is Wikipedia but some of our teachers would warn us against using it for doing research. This is mostly due to the fact that articles in Wikipedia can be written and edited by anyone and there are times when articles would contain incorrect and misleading information. Using these incorrect pieces of information in our research would affect the accuracy of our work.

Still, while it may take a bit more research skill to make sure that what is found in a Wikipedia article is credible as a source, Wikipedia can still be used as a tool for initial research.

Wikipedia provides a wealth of information on many topics. As of this writing, Wikipedia already has 2,420,000 articles in English. It covers the same topics that one can find in the Encyclopedia Britannica but (in most cases) with more current information. It even features up-to-date information on recent events and popular personalities.

So say, we really need to do research on global warming. How do we use Wikipedia to give us a background on the topic? Here is how.

1.       Launch your favorite web browser. (I use Firefox!)

2.       Type www.wikipedia.org in your address bar then hit Enter.

3.       In the Wikipedia search bar, type your search terms, for example “global warming.”

4.       If Wikipedia finds an exact match of search terms to an article title, it will display that article

5.       Read the whole article and jot down important points.

6.       If you need more information about some words and terms, Wikipedia would often have those words as links to direct you to related articles.

7.       At the bottom part of the page, the article would also have the related topics which you might want to explore.

8.       You may also consult the sources cited by the article.

9.       You may also follow external links that would direct you to other articles on the Web that discuss the topic.

We must remember that Wikipedia and other websites give us information for us to gain more knowledge about these topics. However, if we are writing research papers and reports, we must always remember to avoid plagiarizing material. It is definitely easy to just copy and paste portions of text from Wikipedia and other websites but plagiarism is a dishonest way of doing research.