How to Use Wikipedia for Study and Research? 4 Key Benefits to Use Wikipedia for Study and Research


Everyone knows that you can add data to Wikipedia yourself, so they don't really trust it. 

However, Wikipedia can be helpful. 

1. To obtain background and surface information. 

All of this is worth considering: who participated in this or that war; key data from biographies of famous people; and so on. But the interpretation of facts, locations, claims of causes of events or phenomena, dates, and citations requires re-examination. Please note that Wikipedia news can also be read on the Twitter wiki.

2. Keywords.

When researching a completely unfamiliar topic, reading a Wikipedia article helps form a basic conceptual apparatus. Once you understand what keywords and terms are being used, you can continue to search using familiar search engines.

3. Links.

As a rule, at the end of the article you can find links to documents on the web. They frequently lead to more reliable and respected sources—newspapers and magazines. This data can be very useful.

4. Footnotes.

The footnotes are probably the most valuable (usually at the bottom of the article). They provide information about newspapers and magazines, and books that contain relevant information. Very detailed data is usually indicated, both on the page and by the publisher. So you can try to find the edition in the library.


The main thing when working with Wikipedia is not to blindly accept all data as fact. This encyclopedia helps focus research but doesn't negate independent work.

How to use Wikipedia effectively for research?

There is a "Download as PDF" feature on the bottom left of the Wikipedia page. You can download articles in PDF format. For example, you are looking for facts and articles to summarize. To make it easier for you, download articles in PDF format, download them to any device, and read them at your convenience. You can also print them out and slowly finish your work.

1. Compose your own book.

There is a bookmaker feature under "Create books" on Wikipedia . This means you can select your favorite articles by clicking "Add this page to your book." The output is a PDF file for printing or for any other form of work. The Wiki encyclopedia is "free" that its full version can even be downloaded to a computer. Only it's about 64 gigabytes in size!

2. Save useful articles via Pocket.

This application allows you to save any Wikipedia article and then open it offline. It's handy if you're traveling out of town where the internet doesn't have access, right?

3. Learn English

If you read English books and sometimes there are unfamiliar words, you don't need to waste time looking for translations. The Google Dictionary extension translates words with the touch of your finger. The fact that online dictionaries, in addition to explaining the meaning of words, also refer to Wikipedia articles Here's how to learn a foreign language using a wiki.

4. Gather data for messages, term papers, abstracts, and graduation theses.

Wikipedia is such a huge reference book that you could easily prepare an article or a summary of its articles. To do this, you should research several articles on the topic to come up with a general idea and to familiarize yourself with the topic. And then, motivated by knowledge, you write your own text. And yes, we don't recommend writing off everything cleanly for diploma theses and term papers. They are works at the level where you must research primary sources. Therefore, on Wikipedia, you can find clues: a list of references. It will save you a lot of time searching for books. It remains only to download books from the Internet or go to the library to find them.


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