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Depends. Wikipedia is the very definition of an unreliable source, yet I know many writers who use it for reference. "I just use it as a starting point," they will say, but I wonder. Since most of them are typically chasing deadlines, do they really take the time to fact check?

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Drew Spence : If someone searches for evidence of something and finds 3 website links, they feel very safe running with whatever they were Google-researching-for as a confirmed fact.

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Feel safe they may, but are they? Those "three sources" may all be referencing a single, common source. Maybe it's accurate, maybe it isn't. It's a variant on that old shampoo ad, "I told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, , and they told two friends…" And, of course, the longer this goes on, the more likely false information is to be the first Google reference to pop up.