Use of Wikipedia Content

I have written a manuscript that describes the biographies of 100 people over the past 200 years. You'll forgive me if I do not disclose the nature of these people.

Anyway, because of the nature of each entry - average three pages - I researched many websites and ended up using material from Wikipedia. Now, my question to the forum is, is it legal for me to use Wikipedia text as long as I reference the website, etc?

Many thanks in advance.

 

When you say you used material from Wikipedia, do you mean you took the actual words, or just the information?

Wikipedia is no different from any other website, so I'm not sure why you're asking the question just about Wikipedia, but in general - if you take actual words from a source, you need to use quotation marks and cite it. If you take specific information, you don't use quotation marks but need to cite it. If you take general knowledge that would be available in lots of different places (who fought on which side of WWII, or whatever) you don't need to cite it.

All of this is aside from the scholarly worth of your project, though. I'm not sure who your target audience is, but if you're planning to try to sell this manuscript, either to publishers or directly to the public, you have to ask yourself why anyone would pay for information they could have read for themselves on Wikipedia...

 

Most of the time Wikipedia isn't the original source of the information. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see the sources they used. You may be better off looking at those for your sources, as Wikipedia isn't the most reliable.

 

You can look at the terms of their license on their website, but I think if you use their text you have to release your use under the same permissive license they use.

 

It's probably safer to use wikipedia for research and write the information you want to convey from it in your own style/voice. Especially since info from wikipedia comes from multiple sauces and might have an inconsistent tone.

 

Hello members. I have been working on what I regard to be a unique non-fiction subject which would certainly be a first in this particular publication's market. I started work on this manuscript just over two years ago. It was more of a love for the subject and I would spend many weekends putting the subject matter on file. The manuscript is almost complete and I would look to seek out an agent to take it further.

Now I'll get to the point regarding this post. I will be upfront and honest in that I would say about 80% of the content was taken from Wikipedia which I edited. I am aware of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License. Now I would obviously include this in the manuscript but what I was thinking was creating a separate index that lists all share-alike information.

Your answers would possibly be of help to other writers with similar outlooks.

Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

Like with any nonfiction work, as long as you don't lift the content word-for-word and you cite your sources (both where you reference certain things in the text, and in a works cited page), you'll be fine. Generally speaking, while Wikipedia is helpful, it can be frowned upon as not the most reliable source of information because anyone can go in there and edit it. I'd make sure that whatever information you get from Wiki to cross-check it with other sources. I'm in the middle of doing this with my current nonfiction manuscript as we speak.

 

Agreed. If you intend your work to be taken seriously, don't use Wikipedia as a source, especially if it is an academic subject.

 

Keep in mind that many good articles on Wikipedia will have sources cited at the bottom that would be better to use, provided you don't plagiarize.

Wikipedia might be an OK starting point to see what is out there before using more well known repositories of information.

 

You beat me to it.

Wiki is a good starting point for that very reason. The notes at the bottom are often from reliable, researched sources.

And of course, as with any non-fiction work, don't lift content word for word. You can have the same information/sentiment/theory, but summarize it in your own words