Wikipedia is a "free, multilingual enclylopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation" (www.wikipedia.com). This site is often used as a reasearch tool by people all over the world. I definitely think that Wikipedia can be used as a source of information for research. At the same time, I do not think that Wikipedia should be your ONLY source for research.
One reason why WIkipedia should not be a trusted source as a final answer to anything is because anyone can make changed to the information on wikipedia. According to The NPR Blog major corporations have been going into wikipedia and making changes to entries containing negative references or information on them. These companies include Exxon, Walmart, and even the CIA. That makes you wonder if you can believe anything you see on the website.
On the other hand, you are able to see who the source of the information is, so you can decide for yourself if the informatin is reliable. If you are doing research on something like Walmart, you may want to check other sources where Walmart is not able to have only the informatin they want posted, but, if you are writing about George Washington, atleast some of the information on Wikipedia should be usefull. Users need to use Wikipedia at their own disgression and check all of the facts they decide to use.
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