Is Wikipedia a Reliable Search Engine

One of the most popular search engines on the worldwide web that students of all ages use is wikipedia. Wikipedia has become such a popular search engine because users can post their own content to the search engine and edit other content that has already been posted so that the information is updated.

However, over the past couple of years the popular search engine has come under fire from critics who have stated that the information posted on Wikipedia is often incorrect or has wrong information. Students have been using this search engine for research purposes for school papers and teachers have found that the information that students are writing in their papers is often factually incorrect. This has led to a large number of teachers telling students not to use Wikipedia for research information in their papers.

Due to the criticism that they have received, Wikipedia has taken great strides to ensure the quality of the work being published on the website. This includes a "wikifying" process for all users who post content or edit content on their website. In this process, all users have to state their name or give an IP address or the computer location where they are sending the information from. They also have to cite the information if they have received the information from a book or online website. If the person is posting information using their own knowledge, then they have to state their credentials and how they arrived at this first hand knowledge.

In addition, wikipedia.org has taken many steps to ensure that their website is professional despite containing user generated content. Any person who posts unique information that has not already been posted on the wikipedia search engine must have at least four or five subsections with subsection titles. This will allow for a small table of content box to appear on the page which allows users to click on a link on the table on context. This will automatically transfer them to the part of the content that they are interested in.