How to use Wikipedia to do research

Wikipedia is one of the world's largest sources of free information with nearly 3 million articles in english and many more in languages as diverse as Euskara and Tagalog. With over 10 million registered users, information is constantly being updated and created. Because anybody can create an account and edit any page, many worry about the reliability of information found on Wikipedia. In fact, many teachers have now banned the use of Wikipedia as a source of information for homework such as research papers. While this prevents a student from directly citing Wikipedia articles in their work, it does not prevent them from using Wikipedia as a research tool and as a gateway to more information.

Extracting sources

Wikipedia articles are effective "portals" to more information, and other more reputable websites are often linked directly from articles. If you know where to look, you can use these sites as direct references in your work. The two main places to find these third party websites and information sources are in the "External links" section, and in the "References" section. Occasionally a third section titled "Further reading" is provided, but oftentimes there will only be the two aformentioned areas.

In the "External links" section, article editors will often list links to important websites that are relevant to the topic at hand. These are easy information sources that often include "official" web sites, highly informative sites, and highly respected or well-known sites. Oftentimes these links contain copyrighted material that cannot be used directly on Wikipedia for one reason or another, but can be cited in an academic paper or project.

Perhaps the best source of information is the "References" section. In this section, works cited by the Wikipedia article itself are listed here, often with author, publisher information, publication date, etc. listed also. These sources are often applicable to whatever work you are doing, and using them is like having others do a part of your research for you. This also eliminates irrelevant search engine hits from google and lists the most relevant topics to your subject.

The final source of references can be found in the "Further reading" section of a page. This section is similar to the "External links" section listed earlier, but instead of listing links, it lists books and journals.

 Using Wikipedia as a search topic aid

The final way to use Wikipedia in your research is to use the information provided in the article as a "springboard" for finding new information.  When reading a Wikipedia article, keep an eye out for areas of your subject you have not considered.  You can easily generate new topics to research on google by simply paying attention while reading.  Many ideas for further research and commentary can be found in the text; however, make sure not to fall prey to plagiarism.  While Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons license, you cannot simply steal direct quotes from their articles.

Wikipedia itself has a page on research that you may wish to check out. It is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia.