An introduction to using Wikipedia to find information on research topics.

1. SEARCHING WITH WIKIPEDIA
MSVU Library Online Tutorials

2. What is Wikipedia?
• An online encyclopedia that allows anyone to create or edit articles.

3. What will you find?
• Encyclopedia-style entries and information.
• Contains just the facts on a topic, not scholarly writing or original research.

4. Pros
• Can be a great place to do
background research on a topic.
• If you see incorrect information,
you may edit it yourself.
Cons
• User-edited, meaning information
may not always be accurate .
• Especially important to be critical
and verify any facts.

5. Other tips
• Simple to search – just look up a topic to find the entry.
• Citations are located at the bottom of each article, look at these to judge the
credibility of information.

6. Best results when
searching for a topic rather
than research on a topic.
No results returned for original search
– this does not mean that there is no
information available on this topic.
There may be relevant
information included in
one of these results, so it
is a good idea to browse
through these articles.

7. Wikipedia articles are all laid out the same: the title
and a short introduction are at the top of the page.
A table of contents is located a bit
further down the page. Items can be
clicked if you would like to jump to a
specific section. On the right there is
usually a box with an image and some
key facts about the topic.

8. Articles usually have links to
other articles right in the text.
The small numbers beside
different parts of the text
correspond to the references.
References are located at the
bottom of each article. The
numbers match those found in
the text. You can use these titles
to do a search in a database.