Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia created and edited by volunteers. It was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has grown exponentially. Wikipedia articles are written and edited by internet users, though changes must be verified by sources. While convenient and vast in scope, some question its reliability since content can be changed by any user.

1. By: Alex Weinrich

2. Menu
 Overview of Wikipedia
 History and Creator
 Purpose of Wikipedia
 Content of Wikipedia and where is comes
from.
 Uses for Wikipedia
 Wikipedia: A web 2.0 tool
 Similar Sites to Wikipedia
 What Does Research Say
 Positives and Negatives

3. Overview
 Wikipedia is a research tool that is free to
anybody with access to the internet.
 Wikipedia’s has a vast amount of articles, so
you always find what you need. It has about
3,154,396 content pages.
 Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the
world. It allows the user to make changes in
the article. This could be good or bad. Each
article averages about 18 revisions.

4. History and Creators
 The creators were Larry Sanger and
Jimmy Wales. They thought of the
idea in the fall of 1999.
 The project before Wikipedia, called
Nupedia, which was established on
March 9, 2000. This later became
officially known as Wikipedia.
 Wikipedia was very small at the Larry Sanger
start, having no more than 2 articles
in 2000.
 Then through advertising the number
of articles grew exponentially to
what is today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimm
y_Wales

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry
_Sanger
Jimmy Wales

5. Purpose
 This tool is extremely useful
when there is research to be
done. Being the largest
encyclopedia, you can search
anything and have an in
depth answer for free.
 The articles have been
revised by professionals and
experts.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
ki/Wikipedia

6. Content and Where It Comes From
 The users submit their
information to
Wikipedia. Their
information has to be
backed up by sources
and Wikipedia checks it
before it is published. On the other hand, there is a lot
 This is why there is so of controversy to this process.
Many users say that the
many articles, people information is not credible
from all over the world because anybody on the internet
came together to can click “edit this page” and
suggest their ideas and change the content.
information.

7. Uses for Wikipedia
 The are many different uses for Wikipedia but it
is mostly used in school or the office.
 At school, students always have research projects
to do and can go to Wikipedia for basically
anything. However, many schools do not allow the
use of Wikipedia as a source because of the fact
that anybody can edit the information.
 In the office, anybody that needs more in depth
information on a subject. It is likely that when
you search something, Wikipedia will be on the
first page of results.

8. Wikipedia: A web 2.0 tool
 This is a web 2.0 tool because it can be
accessed by anybody on the web, just as
YouTube and Facebook can be. Wikipedia has
a immense amount of people involved and
communicates information to them for free.
 It is a collaboration of everyone working
collectively to build a colossal, free
encyclopedia, and it keeps building today.

9. Similar Sites
 Some similar sites to
Wikipedia are:
 Encyclopedia.com
 Britannica.com
 MSN Encarta
 WorldBook.com

10. What Does Research Say?
 The New York Times says that
Wikipedia is “a place for
amateurs.”
 “It represents the rise of the
amateur at the expense of the
professional.”
 The New York Times questions
the credibility of the information
when everyone is able to edit it.
 Wikipedia has prevented
unknown users from making and
editing new articles.
 http://www.nytimes.com/info/wi
kipedia/?inline=nyt-org

11. Positives and Negatives
 Positives
 There is such a wide range of articles in
which you can search for a certain thing
or subject.
 Wikipedia is very easy to use. Most of the
time, you can Google the search content
and Wikipedia will be one of the first to
come up.
 Experts and professionals revise the
articles before they are published.
 Negatives
 Anyone can edit any page on Wikipedia.
 Wikipedia relies solely on donations and
volunteers.
 The users need to come up with the
content.