Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia

This help page is a how-to guide.

It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

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Wikipedia can be a great tool for learning and researching information. However, as with all tertiary reference works, Wikipedia is not considered to be a reliable source as not everything in Wikipedia is accurate, comprehensive, or unbiased. Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, is intended to provide an overview of topics and indicate sources of more extensive and academic information.

Many of the general rules of thumb for conducting research apply to Wikipedia, including:

Always be wary of any one single source (in any medium—web, print, television or radio), or of multiple works that derive from a single source.
Where articles have references to external sources (whether online or not) read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says.
In most academic institutions, Wikipedia, like most encyclopedias and other tertiary sources, is unacceptable as a source for facts in a research paper. Some encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica have notable authors working for them and may be cited as a secondary source in some cases; institutional policies will vary. For example, Cornell University's online guide to APA style uses citations from Britannica in some of its examples.

However, because of Wikipedia's unique nature, there are also some rules for conducting research that are special to Wikipedia, and some general rules that do not apply to Wikipedia.