My group and I decided to audit the Wikipedia page for Scientology. Yes, Scientology, the infamous 'new religion' that has gained national and international attention in the past years. The objective of the assignment was to evaluate the page itself and see if Wikipedia was indeed an "encyclopedia" that people can use as a scholarly source. Because maintaining objectivity would be hardest regarding a controversial topic and it would provide us more content to work with, we had to pick a topic that would be under the "controversial" category. After much agony and brainstorming, Sara (I think) blurted out "Scientology!" It was an epic moment.
After the whole process, I do believe that Wikipedia should not be used as a scholarly source. Sure, the articles do have their merits, but the overall reliability is not too great. In my personal opinion, I think it's a great site to get a slight overview of many topics. There are enough truths, albeit presented in a specific way, to give the reader a decent summary of various subjects. The brief overview is definitely there. However, its weakness lies in the fact that editors all have their own biases and no one site can be free of that. In some instances, different sections have conflicting views because the editors had conflicting views.
Yet, I don't know if I can even avoid the temptation of using Wikipedia for school, despite my findings. I know for a fact that students still use Wikipedia as their primary source, finding ways to go around the citation by using random citations at the bottom. While it may fly by for some teachers, as Wikipedia possesses legitimate information, the danger is that for other teachers, it may be obvious to them that their students are a lazy bunch of sneaks. Technology, as we discussed in class, is making us a lazier society.
From this project, I learned how even the sources presented in the bottom of the Wikipedia article are not as scholarly and reliable as they seem. I will be more careful the next time I look at Wikipedia as a reference. If I ever want to use information from a Wikipedia article, I will make sure to verify my facts from other sites before going through with it.
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