In my early schooling, starting in middle school we were told that Wikipedia was not a trustworthy site to use for research when writing papers for school. We were told the information was unreliable because it could be changed by others.After reading Purdy I understand why they would warn us about using this as a source as a child, now I have the understanding to check the sources on the wikipedia page to check the sources. Purdy states, “You should, therefore, read critically all sources, not just Wikipedia articles. It’s always a good idea to verify information in multiple sources.” meaning that in order for Wikipedia to be trustworthy, you must check their sources.
Purdy explains that Wikipedia can be a useful tool for students and scholars, when it is used as a baseline information or a starting point for your research. It can be used to get ideas, get other sources and understand the topic or terms more clearly. ”There are productive ways to use Wikipedia. In fact, Wikipedia can be a good source in three different ways. Rather than a source to cite, it can be a source of (1) ideas, (2) links to other texts, and (3) search terms.”  It can help you to get a better understanding of the topic in a more neutral tone as well. “Wikipedia articles are a different genre than academic research-based writing. Wikipedia seeks to emulate an encyclopedia (that’s where the “pedia” part of the name comes from) and, thereby, requires that articles be written in what it calls “NPOV,” or neutral point of view; articles are intended to represent all significant sides of a topic rather than to persuade readers to believe one is correct” Wikipedia does not write their pages specifically with a side in mind, rather they have a more neutral fact based source.
After reading about how Wikipedia works I would consider it a community platform because there are thousands of volunteers working on the site. “ Moreover, those contributors who revise the most and have their article contributions last for a long time can gain in status among the Wikipedia community and be promoted to administrators. It is, in other words, through revising that Wikipedia contributors earn respect.” I was not aware that there was such an active community behind wikipedia. The conversations taking place over every article edit was also unknown, it does make sense and I believe that this helps wikipedia stay neutral.