Wiki-whatty?

As we launch in the thrilling world of 20th and 21st Century I-SEARCH in eighth grade (one of my favorite projects), the question keeps coming up, "What about Wikipedia?"

This is what: "Go for it, it's a great source." It's fabulous, guys. Really. Anyone in the world can write or contribute to almost any article. Therefore it has lots of topics that the big encyclopedias don't cover. It's super for an overview before you dive into the other sources. And it makes the citation for you. Cool!

And you get to use your critical brain while you read and you get to compare it to lots of other sources. Which is a good idea whether you're using Wikipedia, or World Book or, even me! Like the poor sixth grader who totally trusted me (hey, you did too, once upon a time) that the death of Duke Franz Ferdinand started WWII. Which just shows that I didn't read An Abundance of Katherines closely enough the first time. John Green, forgive me! I know now that it's WWI! Poor sixer kept looking and looking, instead of thinking, "You know, Ms Powell might just be wrong about that one little thing."

Think here, people!