Wikipedia is an online collaborative Encyclopedia.  It hosts over 5,000,000 articles in English alone[1]. The article topics range from Quantum Physics, to Celebrity Biographies and everywhere in between.

How Does It Work

You can access Wikipedia by typing Wikipedia.org into the URL bar or by searching Wikipedia into one of the major search engines. However, the most common approach to using Wikipedia is by searching the topic you wish to research into Google, and then clicking the corresponding Wikipedia link.

The general format of a Wikipedia Article is a short-medium length (relative to the rest of the article) introduction followed by a contents list. On the right-hand-side is typically an image/diagram/portrait of the topic of the article.

 

Pros

All The Knowledge

The biggest advantage of Wikipedia over other online tools is it has millions of articles about everything in popular knowledge. There are very few topics in the public knowledge which don’t have a Wikipedia article. This makes it a useful tool in starting basic research on a topic. The fact that every Wikipedia article has links to extra information related to the initial topic accentuates this fact.

Good Starting Point

A second advantage is Wikipedia is an excellent place to start research. One of the reasons for this is the website provides a lot of information to create a general overview of a topic. On top of this it provides a detailed list of references at the bottom of every article page. This provides numerous ways to continue researching a topic.

Cons

Anyone Can Change It

The largest disadvantage of Wikipedia is any page (with very few exceptions) can be edited by someone with a Wikipedia account and there is no governing body for Wikipedia. This means the entries can have inaccuracies, or the page can be radically different from its normal state at the time you access it (albeit this is very unlikely).

Not Specific

Another disadvantage to Wikipedia is although it has a large wealth of knowledge of every field, it doesn’t have more than surface knowledge for topics. Specific in-depth knowledge is hard for Wikipedia to provide due to the nature of how it gathers knowledge.

Hard Reading

A third disadvantage to Wikipedia is for more complex topics the jargon used can be too complex for people who are not versed in the topic can understand. This is especially true for academic concepts. An example of this is on the Wikipedia page for Quantum Mechanics:

A Wikipedia page is used for obtaining basic knowledge of a topic. It is unlikely for anyone who is already well versed in the topic at hand to be reading a Wikipedia entry on the topic. However, because of the language used it is just as unlikely for someone to understand unless they are at least slightly versed in the topic.

Good For Starting, Bad For Writing

Wikipedia as a tool has a large wealth of knowledge, but it’s utility is limited by its collaborative nature. As long as Wikipedia is not used as anything more than a basic fact checker and/or a starting point for further research it is a useful tool.

[1] Main Page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, (Acessed: 17 November 2016)