Is Wikipedia Better Than Microsoft Encarta?

[demonboy1990 0]

i use wikipedia all the time but i will always look around and make sure the information is true.

[k_nitin_r 8]

I often use Wikipedia as a reference and, like most other people on this thread mentioned, I verify the information before I assume that it is true. Most of the information posted on Wikipedia is accurate enough to be taken despite the possibility of it being inaccurate but if you find the same information across multiple websites then you could perhaps accept what you read, provided that there is sufficient support for the idea. However, it is likely that the authors of the content put up on other websites got their information from Wikipedia and that could again be the spread of inaccurate information. Ideally, you would want to subscribe to a database that contains articles and content of the type that you are interested in. Most universities provide students with a subscription to the ProQuest, EBSCOhost, or Gale article databases. These databases further provide an option to limit the search to peer-reviewed sources so you can ensure that you get information that is more-or-less accurate by virtue of being published in a peer-reviewed journal or other peer-reviewed publication. There still is always the possibility that information that you read is inaccurate so unless someone sets out to research the existing literature and validate the information provided, it would be difficult to verify if something is true. It is perhaps the reason why something discovered overnight isn't accepted as scientific theory unless there is a body of research that supports the finding.