Wikipedia Is Good for You!?

Chapter Description

This chapter seeks to show how and why students might use Wikipedia to help them complete research-based writing tasks. It offers suggestions for two ways to use—and not to use—Wikipedia. The first is as a source. The second is as a process guide. The chapter explores how Wikipedia is potentially useful both for generating ideas, finding sources, and determining search terms and for understanding some of the tasks frequently part of good research-based writing in first-year composition: reviewing, conversing, revising, and sharing. Some of what happens in making successful contributions to Wikipedia parallels some of what happens in producing effective research-based writing, and looking at Wikipedia can help to demystify these practices.