Wikipedia is broadly misunderstood by faculty and students alike. Because the Wikipedia community has strict rules about sourcing facts to reliable sources, and because authors must adopt a neutral point of view, its articles are often the best available introduction to a subject on the web.
The focus on sourcing all claims has another beneficial effect. If you can find a claim expressed in a Wikipedia article, you can almost always follow the footnote on the claim to a reliable source. Scholars, reporters, and students can all benefit from using Wikipedia to quickly find authoritative sources for claims. You may be surprised to find that many Wikipedia articles are well-researched, and contain dozens if not hundreds of footnotes to reliable sources. If you are researching a complex question, starting with the resources and summaries provided by Wikipedia can give you a substantial running start on an issue.
Your goal when reading the Wikipedia page for an organization is to find out the agenda.
1) What is this group set up to do?
2) Does that make it more or less trustworthy?
Next up: Volcano (example prompt)