Fact-checking Wikipedia

could you please fact check as much of this as possible, i'm not too sure on some points
- Jacob Campbell (age 15)
Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

I suggest you start by doing some fact-checking of your own. It's a good skill to learn!

Which points are you unsure of? Do they have references? Check out the references--do they seem reliable? If they don't have specific references, can you find a few references of your own that agree with what the article says? Do those references seem reliable? You can try searching the Ask the Van archives, or just use a search engine.

If you think a particular statement in a Wikipedia article is fishy, you can click on "History" at the top of the article and see if it has been changed recently. In the history of the article, you can see who wrote particular statements (although they may be anonymous), and if someone else disagreed and changed the article. Try using the "Revision history search" to find changes to a particular topic within an article.

If you still have specific questions after your own investigation, we might be able to answer them.

Rebecca Holmes

(published on 08/15/2014)