Doing research papers and homework assignments that require research have never been the same since the invention of a web based encyclopedia called “Wikipedia”. Though this website is deemed not credible and sometimes faulty, there are some reasons to be assured that the information on this website are fact. In the article by Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot, “Wikipedia: Friend not Foe”, there is discussion on how even though the information that is available on the web can be accessed by any person who wishes to update or change anything, there are a group of editors who are constantly checking the information that is updated on the site for credibility.
I agree with Crovitz and Smoot’s argument that using Wikipedia is a great platform for a deeper research. I think that having this type of information in this particular form can be questionable at times, but if it is approached with a researcher attitude, you can avoid the mistakes of misinformation. In my plans to one day have a classroom of my own, I will encourage my High School students to use Wikipedia to discover a base knowledge of their topic du jour, and then challenge them to use other sources to deepen their knowledge and information.
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The website that I looked at was “The Onion”
Things that made my website look credible:
-The set up is exactly like a real online newspaper company.
-There are articles about real people. For instance here. This one is about Tom Hanks.
-On the webpage, there are different links to different topic matters such as Economy, Sports, Politics, etc.
-There is even a section for local news.