Since the
usefulness of internet had been realized in the world of academic research,
scientist is conveniently gathering second hand research data in the internet,
I can still remember when we research in the internet using the services
of “netscape” and later “yahoo” using
the browser of windows “explorer”.
We
love to see the amazing magic of the data feeds given by the internet from the
key word written in the search engine.
The revolution of internet gave the researchers around the world to
collaborate and share ideas through blogs, research journals, and researchers
exclusive community forum website. The
richness of knowledge bridged by the fiber optic highway allows the rapid
increase of research articles not only from United States of America and Great
Britain but to the Asian countries and other third world countries as well.
The big help of the internet in encouraging
people around the world to create research is becoming more accessible and
simpler. Undeniably, a lot of research websites today that we can download
research journals is already free though some are still requiring the
researchers to pay for the author’s royalty.
As such, other online information is the second option for researchers,
like Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, Times Magazine, Economist, and
many more.
The argument
between researchers and the approving research panel will arise when the
researchers will use the information written in the free online Encyclopedia
called Wikipedia. The old book bound
Encyclopedia that we can find in our grandfathers bookshelves is far more
reliable compared to the online Wikipedia.
The question is WHY!... the fundamental requirement of gathering
secondary research information is to make sure that the information material or
the journal must have a publisher or the journal is being approved by a certain
approving body to make sure that the research journal is scientifically
proven. In a parallel point of view,
“Wikipedia” website is a free Encyclopedia website that everyone can post their
information provided that the information must be classified into different categories. With this concept of data input, reliable
sourcing is not dominant in Wikipedia website.
IF the Wikipedia Company will create a screening body to check the
reliability of the information being stored in the website sanctioned to any
academic institution to established reliability of information, then
information inside Wikipedia website may be useful to any research writing in
the near future.
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