Many college students resort to the Internet for research projects, rather than hitting the library. If there is a subject, person or place that I am unfamiliar with, the first web site many people visit is Wikipedia. I almost find myself visiting this particular site daily.
Although the intentions of the Wikipedia site are good, there can potentially be problems with using this as your only tool for research. As learned in lecture, the point of any wiki is to share the knowledge of multiple people with others. The idea is that the collective intelligence of various people will be more powerful than just the intelligence of one individual.
Most information found on Wikipedia sounds like the content could come straight out of a published encyclopedia. However, if one looks further than just Wikipedia, they will find that not all information is correct. A recent example of this is when I researched the life about Barack Obama for one of my classes. I was interested in the way he rose to leadership. After finding some of my information on Wikipedia, I wanted to double check the information, so I could give my audience the correct facts. After going to the library to complete my research, I checked out various books on Barack's life. Most dates were correct, but I found some variation in his childhood and college years.
Overall, I think that people need to realize the dangers of sites like Wikipedia. Although it can give you a quick answer or overview of a subject, it is not completely reliable.
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