How reliable is Wikipedia as a source of info?

When I was growing up my elders warned me that not everything I could find in print was true. REMEMBER SOME BOOKS LIE TOO! Don't fall into the trap of believing everything you read. Anybody can have anything printed and tell people its true and try to get people to believe them. I know people who spend all their time making up stuff to fool people, its called advertising. Throw that by your teacher, I wonder what they'd say? Any way................ To some extent that depends on the type of information. Technical stuff, I would have to say extremely reliable, names of countries, weight of molecules, so on and so forth. Subjective ,(relatively speaking) , who knows, religious stuff, political stuff. Some wiki pieces IN FACT SAY: DISPUTED ARTICLE or some such :)

You can rely on Wiki for some articles, but not all of them have true facts.

not very cuz anyone can change it and say what they like but if you have some knowledge on what your looking up it may keep you right

Wikipedia is generally fairly reliable, as there are a lot of people who try to keep articles on their subject correct. It's certainly more accurate than a general Google search as anyone can put anything they want on the internet and no-one can make them change it. If something wrong is put on Wikipedia, it will generally be corrected.

Numlock and Stephanie B are right - it isn't reliable at all. Very few universities will accept wikipedia as a source since literally anyone can add/amend information on there. I would use google scholar as an alternative.

I would not use Wikipedia as a source for researching assignments. The main reasons I would not do this are: 1. Your teacher/professor will likely not accept them as valid sources. 2. Anyone can edit almost anything on Wikipedia. I used to contribute more regularly on Wikipedia in the past and I would also encounter many people who would sign on to Wikipedia just to put fake information or foul language just to cause trouble, so it is hard to verify if everything you are reading is true or not. If you are doing a paper, I would use a more reputable site, such as Britannica.com or the like.

It can be reliable as a source of info. But I wouldnt trust that it is all the time. Do other research as well to back up the info.

apparently not very,depends on what your looking up on

Hi, I am at College and I have been told by my tutors not to use Wikipedia,as it is very unreliable,as people can edit any information in it. Indeed in my bibliography for my assignments, I am not allowed to mention Wikipedia as a source of reference,otherwise my work is marked down. I don't advice to use it anyway.