Wikiwikiwooooo It's a Beautiful Saturday Afternoon and I'm Feelin Shnazzy

"Oh and by the way, even though the topic of this project is not discussed anywhere on the Internet but Wikipedia, don't use Wikipedia. It's unreliable." Okay. I guess I'll make up some information of my own instead? Easy enough for me, Mrs. (insert some teacher's name here); I'll just say that ceiling fans are important to society because they prevent the spread of malicious little elves. It's from my imagination rather than Wikipedia, so it MUST be more reliable, right?
Bah humbug. A great deal of people write Wikipedia off without giving it a chance because they assume it to be an unreliable source. In all honesty, it is a highly useful and convenient tool that is capable of providing quick, general information on a wide array of topics. In class yesterday, my group investigated Buddhism through Wikipedia. We then proceeded to test its content with our all-knowing textbook. We found, despite common belief, that Wikipedia got virtually everything right. The one exception was a different point of view on the early life of the Buddha - Wikipedia told us that he was kept in his father's palace as a child, as he was going to be king, while the textbook claims that he was free to leave the palace whenever he pleased. Despite this, Wikipedia got everything we investigated spot on. I feel that teachers should give the tool a chance. It's easy print and font size make it very easy to read, and it provides quick and general information, so as not to bore or overwhelm the stressed reader. Because of this, I prefer Wikipedia far over I do our textbook. All the information I need is condensed and present on a Wikipedia page, however, in the textbook you are required to hunt around for certain tidbits of information, as there is so much fluff stuffed into those dreaded pages. We proved Wikipedia's usefulness, convenience, and relative accuracy...why not make our lives easier and use it more?