Navigating Wikipedia and Wikipedia Articles

Wisely

The Unquiet Library August 2012

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DO…

Assess all information in an article.

Use the information you find to then discover/use alternate, more scholarly sources.

Use Wikipedia to learn the basic information about a new subject or to build some basic background

knowledge. It is a starting point.

Source: http://libguides.tamuk.edu/content.php?pid=164882&sid=1390945&search_terms=evaluating+Wikipedia 2

DON’T…

Fail to investigate the source list at the end of the article—this can be a “jumping off” point

for other possible sources.

Treat the information in the article as authoritative facts.

Use Wikipedia as your only or primary source of information.

Source: http://libguides.tamuk.edu/content.php?pid=164882&sid=1390945&search_terms=evaluating+Wikipedia 3

Featured Content

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Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer as determined by Wikipedia's editors

A small bronze star icon () on the top right corner of an article's page indicates that the article is featured

Articles are evaluated for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style

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Anatomy of Wikipedia Articles

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See also

References

Further Reading

External Links

Date Published or Updated

Cleanup Notes

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Article Section: See Also

Provides a list additional articles in Wikipedia for reading and investigation

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Article Section: References

A list web and print resources referenced in this article

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Article Section: Further Reading

A section of suggestions for additional reading outside of Wikipedia

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Article Section: External Links

A list of suggested web links to browse outside of Wikipedia

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NOTE: all external sources and links should be evaluated for accuracy and credibility;

their inclusion does not automatically mean they are trustworthy sources of information.

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Date Published or Updated

suggested web links to browse outside of Wikipedia

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Cleanup Templates/Notes

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Talk Tab of an Article

A discussion of issues and/or history of the

article

A place to see the “grade” or evaluation

of the article from Wikipedia editors

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Grading_scheme 19

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View the History of an Article

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The revision history statistics can show us interesting editorial data

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Q&

A

Q&A

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