Use lateral reading to check your sources for reliability. Open another tab and research your source author and website. Watch this video to learn more if lateral reading is new to you!
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia like World Book and Britannica. In high school, research should include news reports, magazine and journal articles, books, data, and trusted websites. Encyclopedias should not be your only research source. Here's what you CAN use it for:
1. Fact Check a source - is it a reliable source?
2. Background research - learn more about a topic, identify important people, organizations, and events
3 Find search terms - become familiar with words and definitions used relating to the subject that you can use to do research in databases and Google
4. Follow sources - a good Wikipedia article will cite their research sources at the bottom of the page. Follow those links for research sources you might want to use. Remember that these sources could be biased or wrong, so evaluate them just like any other website.
Recent Changes to Wikipedia - See all of the changes being made to Wikipedia while they happen. You can also see some of the languages used on Wikipedia.
Most Vandalized Wikipedia Articles - This is Wikipedia's list of most frequently vandalized articles. Articles can be vandalized as a joke, a prank, or sometimes to make a political point.
Google has no idea what your search words mean. It looks for web pages where those words appear.
Evaluate websites with Google.
Stop
Investigate the source
Find other sources with the same information
Trace back to the original source to understand quotes
