Final

Wikipedia is the number nine site in the USA (Wolverton, 2007), because it has a lot of information that you want such as climate, math, and medical. Furthermore, this site allows you to add any information you want on it, and get any information from it. In addition, you can edit or delete your information any time you want. In general, you can say it is a free space in the internet for anyone. ”Approximately 38 million people visited the English language version of the site in December 2006. Wikipedia is also easy to find, it frequently appears at the top of many Google searches and access is completely free” (Byers, 2007, para. 3).

In my opinion, this site is a useless site for people.

First, Wikipedia may contain inaccurate information. As we know it is a free site and everyone can add to it. “It is not the number of articles available on Wikipedia that is up for debate, though. The argument amongst scholars is that information available on Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate and that the articles themselves are particularly susceptible to Internet vandalism” (Wolverton, 2007, para. 9).

Second, Wikipedia is not trustworthy site. The main problem for this site is anyone can edit any article. So, someone can edit the true information to make it untrue and the only thing you would find is last update (Lengel, 2006). “Now comes the Internet, which appears to be respectable source, but is in fact unmediated and clearly not all of it authoritative. And it is left to the Internet (Internet users) to separate the wheat from the chaff, to determine the respectability of each site. Our job as teachers is to prepare our students to make that determination” (Lengel, 2006, para. 6).

Third, some academic teachers do not accept Wikipedia as reference. If we agree that Wikipedia contains inaccurate information and is not trustworthy site, we totally agree that the site is not a reference.

Based on the above, the main purpose for any site is to spread right information or get right information or introduce a service for the people. Wikipedia contains a lot of information and you can get the information that you want, but the problem is the information that may you get would not be true. So it is not trustworthy site.

Reference:

Byers,M (2007 March, 8) Controversy over use of Wikipedia in academic papers arrives at Smith, Sophian, Smith College. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2007/03/08/News/Controversy.Over.Use.Of.Wikipedia.In.Academic.Papers.Arrives.At.Smith-2765409.shtml

Wolverton, J (2007 Jan, 22) Wikipedia Wisdom, Valley Vanguard. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://www.svsu.edu/clubs/vanguard/stories/1141

Lengel, J (2006, July, 2) Authority, Teaching with Technology.Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
hhttp://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=12

Bilodeau, E (2008, January 14) Weblog. Academic banning of Google and Wikipedia misguided. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/archives/003743.html