Okay, so I'm about to get the hate of almost every single high school teacher in the world for writing this, but here it goes:
Wikipedia is not a bad source to get historical information.
If you have the sudden urge to bash me in the comments for saying this, just hear me out; I actually have a point in saying this. Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia you can access on the Web, was created for the sheer purpose of being a teaching tool. In recent years, it's gotten fire from the media and the general population for being easy to manipulate and edit, a process they put in to make it as user-friendly as possible. Because of this, several teachers have decided that any cited source that has Wikipedia in the URL will be a dock of points for a grade; in their mind, it's almost like cheating. However, i have a way to have students use Wikipedia without getting those points taken away.
You know that Resources tab at the bottom of most articles on Wikipedia (of course you do, it means the end)? Well, those books and websites listed are basically where the combined info from the article came from; like Frankenstein, it was stitched together from other parts to make one massive article. Let's say you're down to your wit's end for a big project, and have no other sources but Wikipedia to turn to. Well, use Wikipedia, and then, copy down all the sources in Resources (if you can, only the ones that are relevant to your main project). Instead of copying the Wikipedia link, just put those into your cited sources; if you need to make it MLA, do so, but most of the sources should already be in the correct form. Lastly, turn in the project-you're done. Because you didn't put the Wikipedia source in the Sources, you can't get docked points, and your teacher would be clueless to which one was from Wikipedia unless they checked themselves (a process they wouldn't do, because it would make grading take too long).
History class is the worst offender for this, so I've always used my non-Wiki sources plus the Resources section; it makes me feel a little guilty, yes, but in the end, I won't lose points over something so trivial. The best part of this Quick History Tip is that I learned it from my Chemistry teacher Ms. Vargas-she used it in several of her college assignments to make citing sources easier.
Well, if I haven't already been burned at the stake by an army of angry teachers who think I'm the Antichrist, I'll see you all in a few days! I hope I've saved some time (and points) for using Wikipedia and citing correct sources!
-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep
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