Comparison of Wikipedia and Other Encyclopedias for Accuracy, Breadth, and Depth in Historical Articles

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Comparison of Wikipedia and Other Encyclopedias for Accuracy, Breadth, and Depth in Historical Articles - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2008, written by Lucy Holman Rector.

Overview

Purpose – This paper seeks to provide reference librarians and faculty with evidence regarding the comprehensiveness and accuracy of Wikipedia articles compared with respected reference resources.Design/methodology/approach – This content analysis evaluated nine Wikipedia articles against comparable articles in Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Dictionary of American History and American National Biography Online in order to compare Wikipedia's comprehensiveness and accuracy. The researcher used a modification of a stratified random sampling and a purposive sampling to identify a variety of historical entries and compared each text in terms of depth, accuracy, and detail.Findings – The study did reveal inaccuracies in eight of the nine entries and exposed major flaws in at least two of the nine Wikipedia articles. Overall, Wikipedia's accuracy rate was 80 percent compared with 95‐96 percent accuracy within the other sources. This study does support the claim that Wikipedia is less reliable than other referenc...

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