With the consistent pursuit of democracy and freedom to express personal ideas, there comes a problem associated with such freedoms. The internet gives most users the freedom to express themselves through blogs, websites among other forms that are easily expressed through the internet. It is for this reason that Wikipedia was developed as an online source of information that exhausts almost every topic under the sun. Some researchers have challenged the validity of Wikipedia by equating it to anyone printing materials and placing them on the supermarket shelves for sale (Harris). In Wikipedia, users are allowed to post their opinions without much scrutiny and therefore this source cannot be relied on for the delivery of correct or reliable facts about World War II.
Introduction
There have been arguments voiced against the reliability of internet sources such as Wikipedia as a source of scholarly information. Wikipedia is widely used across the globe and this primarily puts it on a collision course with many scholars concerning its credibility
Wikipedia Nature
Users post their views and opinions over the site without any authoritative body to scrutinize the content. Wikipedia contains information that is posted by users expressed as opinions and views. Such views can be highly debatable in quarters where people have different opinions.
Report on World War II
World War II is a case study of how Wikipedia reports the events that occurred during this period. It exposes how unreliable the information may be and other weaknesses that this source may present. Even though it is quite detailed and gives a good overview of how the world war started, some quarters could easily dismiss it for lacking credibility because information lacks authenticity from reliable sources (World War II).
Wikipedia as a powerful and Authoritative supplier of Information
Wikipedia commands a huge following on the internet as a source of information. It is translated into 82 languages and has more than 800,000 articles in English.
Conclusion
Wikipedia remains an unreliable source of information because its managers have not devised ways of controlling the content provided on the site. The fact that it is rich in content does not make the information it bears true and reliable. Some of the indicators of lack of credibility are anonymity, lack of control and bad grammar which Wikipedia has not been able to escape.
References
Harris, Richard. Evaluating Internet Research Sources. 2007. Web.
“World War II.” wikipedia.org. 2010. Web.