Skip to Main Content
site header image

Chemistry 484: Topics in Chemistry: Wikipedia, etc.

What About Wikipedia?

Appropriate Uses of Wikipedia Inappropriate Uses of Wikipedia
  • Learning more about your topic
  • Identifying concepts, terminology and keywords related to your topic
  • Finding out about very current events (e.g., the flood last week)
  • Using the bibliography and notes to find additional sources on your topic
  • Using it as one of your sources
  • Relying on the information as being accurate (because anyone can edit Wikipedia articles)
  • Not verifying information found there with a credible source (cite the credible source, not Wikipedia)

What About Google?

Using Google is not an efficient way to search for scholarly or peer-reviewed articles. Using the Library's article databases on the Articles tab above is the best way to search for scholarly sources. If you still feel compelled to use Google, look at the Google Scholar tab above.