Wikipedia:Research help

When is Wikipedia useful for research?

, by representing all the opinions from those publications.

Wikipedia's survey articles are always available online for free, so they provide a great place to begin your research. Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point.

Should I cite Wikipedia?

You should always cite where you actually took your information from. So, if you end your research here, cite that properly. But you probably shouldn't be citing Wikipedia. This is good advice for all encyclopedias, which are designed to introduce researchers to topics, not be the final point of reference.

There is a better way: Volunteers

to a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. In articles, a blue number indicates these references, for example^[1]). These numbers link to the "References" section at the bottom of the page. Each reference supports the part of the page where you found the number. That means the references at the bottom of the page follow the order they are used in the article, not how important they are.

When researching with Wikipedia, you should read the cited sources and then summarize and cite those reliable sources, not the Wikipedia article itself. Watch the video in this section to learn more about how information makes its way into Wikipedia!

How reliable is Wikipedia?

Anyone with a connection to the Internet can edit Wikipedia. There are no formal, official editors who approve each change. At any time, on any article, there could be an error at the time you view it. But, just because anyone can change an article, it doesn't mean their changes will stay on Wikipedia for very long.

Almost immediately after someone changes a Wikipedia page, Wikipedia's community filters that edit through a combination of automated tools and human review.

We block obviously bad edits from entering at all; then automated "bots" undo vandalism in seconds; and round-the-clock volunteers review recent changes to articles. Dedicated editors receive updates about each change in order to review the articles they follow. Finally, Wikipedia's millions of readers catch and fix flaws when they find them.

This

, as the programmer's motto goes. Many helpful people, like you, volunteer their time to make an impossible task possible.

How are Wikipedia articles structured?

Most Wikipedia articles you'll read begin with an introduction or lead that summarizes the entire article. Articles continue with the main text or body, which summarizes parts of the topic. At the bottom of an article you will find references that show where information in the article came from, so you can check the information from the article yourself. These sections might also contain links to other websites that have more resources.

Every Wikipedia article has a discussion or

stores every single change that's ever made to it.

Wikipedia has over 5 million articles, all of which are "

at the top of the page.

The Wikipedia community has created a

status.

Some of our articles cover topics very well while others are much less developed. This is because volunteer contributors choose to improve articles that they are most interested in. Wikipedia also has

in what we cover. These biases and gaps exist because our editors' interests often reflect their backgrounds, and many of our contributors come from wealthier countries in the world and have similar educational and cultural backgrounds.

What if I can't access sources cited in a Wikipedia article?

Though more and more sources are becoming

program.