Wikipedia’s growing popularity leaves society to question its reliability in many aspects including accuracy of information, susceptibility to exclude false or biased information, and quality of writing. The best way to analyze is to look at a specific Wikipedia page and diagnose it. For historic purposes, the Wikipedia page “Viking expansion” provides information on the Norse, mainly known as Vikings. Rather than evaluating this page on the Norse expansion and settlement throughout the world, looking at the specific Norse activity in the British Isles will be more effective. This page describes the invasions that the Norse people from Scandinavia done throughout the years in the British Isles, including the reasons and rulers. It also provides background of the British Isles including which languages and religions were used or practiced in a certain area. From there, like the background information, the events of expansion are listed on the page in chorological order starting in 793CE; each listing how the invasion happened, who was ruling at a particular time, and battles. The end of the page gives a brief acknowledgement of written records and archaeological evidence. At first glance this specific Wikipedia page looks excellent, but looking deeper into the pages strengths and weaknesses made its reliability fragile. Wikipedia has policies that state articles are to contain no original research, a neutral point of view, and that all of their information must be verifiable, accurate, and comprehensive. Assuming that every page follows these rules, anyone would naturally assume that the given information on a page is consistent. Analyzing how well the “Norse activity in the British Isles” page achieved these guidelines will ensure the reliability. Evaluating the neutrality of the writer can be scaled by claims or interpretations without a citation to an external source.
In the beginning of the page, the first half of the background section talks about how Ireland and Britain were divided in ways of culture, linguistics, and religion. Even though there is much detail of certain groups of people, there is no source used by the writer. For portion of great concern is where there is questioning of whether the Pictish people were Celtic or non-Indo-European. The writer states that there is scarcity of inscriptions; most of them name evidence that points to the Picts being Celtic in language and culture. Without an outside source given, there is no way to tell if that portion is made up to portray his or hers opinion. Another location of similar practice is in the section about the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Even though the paragraph is relatively small in size, it still doesn’t have an outside source to verify it’s authority of information. Analyzing in this method has shown that the page overall is in decent standing, especially since authors of the outside sources are mentioned and used to prove a certain point.
The page on the surface has enough sources to be effective, but the Wikipedia page exposes a problem: it relies on three of the five sources given. This page is heavily relied on the books written by Blair, Graham-Campbell and Batey, and Richards. The locations at which these sources are used also are questionable. The three sources are used evenly throughout the background, Viking raids, and the archaeological evidence. In the core of the page that talks about the invasions of 865-896 and 980-1012 is where the problem occurs. Richards is the only source used for that information. This doesn’t make the information given on that specific topic reliable and comprehensive, both of which are stated as a policy for Wikipedia.
Besides the page relying on the three of the five sources heavily, this page cites a book written by Crawford and an encyclopedia by Keynes. The page uses Keynes once, which is in the very beginning of the page. Also, this sentence cites both Keynes and Richards as the source. This seems to be a strategy to basically make the page have more sources than it essentially has. To emphasize on that, the Crawford book that is cited in the bibliography isn’t used once throughout the whole page. Realizing this situation marks another negative point on this page.
History as we know it today is based upon historical documents and artifacts left by the native people at that time, thus it would be easy to interpret the documents information and facts as correct in the eyes of the author. In the case of the Vikings, it would be common to learn and read on their actions and cultural lifestyles as violent and ethically terrible based upon the Anglo-Saxon British, Picts, Scots, or another group of peoples point-of-view. With that biased occurrence in mind, the writer seemed to be conscious of this mistake by proving multiple viewpoints. For example, one of the sections talked about how Norseman would raid Christian monasteries in the finale decade of the 8th century. The writer did a great job of taking the perspectives of both the Christian monks and Norseman. For the Norseman, it clearly pointed out that the raids were not anti-Christian in nature but were just “easy targets” for them. Actually, they were astonished “at finding so many communities which housed considerable wealth and whose inhabitants carried no arms.” This reason was backed up by the rationale behind the location of the monasteries. According to the Christian monks, the monasteries were for seclusion. The location that they chose that would fulfill this goal was on small islands or in other remote coastal areas (Blair 63). Looking at the facts skin deep would conclude that the author didn’t include any biasness.
A document that seems to be neutral or to provide all the perspectives doesn’t necessarily do that. This deems to be true since, as stated before, the Wikipedia page only uses the book written by Richards as the source for the Viking invasions. Even though this author is creditable and reliable according to his achievements, this still makes the writer of the Wikipedia page bias since it only chose to use this source for information. A booked called From Viking to Crusader provides more detail and a different look into the settlement in the British Isles. The section “The Scandinavians in Britain and Ireland” written by David M. Wilson with a contribution by Richard Hall mentions all the exact same dates as the Wikipedia page does, but gives a different look into it. They give archaeological evidence that gives the information authenticity and less biasness to the article itself. One such evidence was of bones from human skeletons that were found in a burial-mound at Repton in England (Roesdahl & Wilson 98). This backs up Richards’s information on the Viking invaders that had wintered in 873-874. With this example, it proves that the writer of the page chose to use only Richards as the source for the invasion rather than many other sources that are also accurate. Another way anyone can sway or portray information in a certain way is by their conciseness throughout the page; mainly looking at omissions or inclusions of aspects. This way people can convince the reader to agree with the message presented and adopt it as their own belief, thus rejecting the viewpoints of the “other” side. This deception leads to blinding readers with biased views of, for example, the reasoning behind the Vikings invading England. Since this article is on the Norse activity in the British Isles, it should be consistent in what information is given for each invasion or battle. The raiding on the monastery located on Scotland’s west coast in 802 and 806 provides detail on the exact amount of people that were killed. All of the other activities that would naturally involve death don’t mention exactly or approximately how many people died. Analyzing the articles neutrality with the impact of deception, claims or interpretations without a citation to an external source, and the overall mood can give a concise result to the issue of biasness. Biasness isn’t the only issue that needs to always be investigated. Normally, each Wikipedia page will have sources that they used to provide information on that topic. An often mistake is to assume that the sources are accurately reported in the article so someone can use the information given to a certain extent. The only way to be assured that sources are used correctly is to look over the external source and compare where the source is being credited. First of all, looking at the book written by Julian D. Richards, it is obvious that whoever wrote this Wikipedia page found a heavy amount of information that was valuable to this page since it is used most often by a noticeable extent. Because of this observation, it is normal to suspect that this sources information and interpretation will not be perfectly portrayed in the article. On the contrary, this source was used completely accurate. Like his book, the book written by Peter Hunter Blair was relatively easy to compare with the Wikipedia page. According to the analysis and examination of these two outside sources, Wikipedia’s policy on all information being verifiable was correct. In contrast, the third source used wasn’t completely accurate. The mistake found was in the section “Viking raids: 793-850” when it states that “Following such devastation, the monastic community at Iona abandoned the site and fled instead to Kells in Ireland.” In the book, Graham-Campbell and Batey don’t mention the whole community at Iona completely abandoning their community. They state that “part of the community was forced to retreat for safety to Kells in Ireland”, which entails that not the community as a whole left their town (Graham-Campbell & Batey 24). Other than that, the writer did a great job to interpret all three of the authors and to portray the information given in the book onto the Wikipedia page. Even though the writer did an excellent job relaying the information from the sources onto the Wikipedia page, there seems to be a shortcoming of information on the page. As discussed before, the issue is not the quality of work of the sources that were used but of the variety and quantity of sources being used throughout the page. There could’ve been multiple other books used, but the issue with using the three sources is that the quality of work isn’t being portrayed in its full potential.
There are many sections in each book that could’ve have been used for greater detail. For example, Graham-Campbell and Batey talked about the culture and society in Scandinavia. Something that I found interesting that could’ve made a great importance to the “Scandinavia” section on the Wikipedia page was something called the thing. As describe by both authors, it was an administered meeting to solve and practice justice. These meetings were in local and regional levels with an assembly of men from the public (Graham-Campbell & Batey 33). Another instance was from Blair’s Anglo-Saxon England book. Although Blair vaguely talks about how their society was ran, he does mention something that ties together the Viking raids and their ways of justice. He says that “No one who has considered the evidence can well deny that the Viking attack on Britain was accompanied by great violence and widespread destruction, yet the evidence for such a judgment comes largely from the people who suffered most, and it should not be forgotten that the Vikings, whose very name is synonymous with piracy, themselves introduced the word ‘law’ into the English language” (Blair 55). Something as simple as describing the thing and the Viking introduction of the word ‘law’ into the English language would make the “Scandinavia” and “Viking raids: 793-850” section have a greater importance and prove to help readers understand their ways a little more. From this examination, it is recognized that the shortcomings on information is not due to the sources being used but simply the sources are not used well enough. Besides observing how well Wikipedia’s policies are used in this particular page, it is also helpful to consider examining an external source for comparing and contrast sake. A History of the Viking written by a Welsh novelist named Gwyn Jones is perfect. He was a scholar and translator of Nordic literature and history with being a chairman for both the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain and the first editorial board of the Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales, and the holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Falcon and the Commander’s Cross of Ireland (“Gwyn Jones”). Even though his book is older than other sources, his accomplishments make his work reliable to use for scholarly work and for the purpose of inspecting the Wikipedia page. The content that is used on the page is also illustrated in this book, making it easier to compare and contrast. The information that is laid out on the page is the same regarding dates and general information but this provides information that isn’t used in the page. As previously discussed, the page lacks detail. But the one characteristic of this book that isn’t provided on the page is the sense of depth on the invasions and raids. Jones spends an enormous amount of time on the invasions and raids, and how exactly they were executed. For example, he mentions the amount of ships used for each year of activity. It is useful for a reader to understand how much effort was put into an attack to grasp the full complexity of the invasion or raid. The raid of 789 and 851 were completely different when comparing the amount of ships used. In 789 there were a total of 3 ships whereas in 851 there was a total of 350 (Jones 218). This notation of detail was the main difference between the page and Jones’s work adding another layer to the overall standing of the Wikipedia page. The reliability that many question about Wikipedia can be decided based upon the policies that Wikipedia states: articles are to contain no original research, a neutral point of view, and that all of their information must be verifiable, accurate, and comprehensive. Taking the page “Norse activity in the British Isles” and analyzing the sources, claims, and discussions was found to be helpful in many aspects. According to the findings, this particular page fails to exceed the expectations that are set by it. The page, for the most part, accurately sourced the books that were cited but had many signs of biasness and failed to provide an in-depth expression into the Vikings expansion in the British Isles. Not to say that every page of Wikipedia’s is similar to this one, but whoever wrote the article brought down the credibility by not meeting the standards.

Bibliography
Blair, Peter Hunter. An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Third ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
Graham-Campbell, James, and Colleen E. Batey. Vikings in Scotland: An Archaeological Survey. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998. EBSCOhost. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
"Gwyn Jones." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Second ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984. Print.
Richards, Julian D. Viking Age England. London: B.T. Batsford, 1991. Print.
Roesdahl, Else, and David M. Wilson. From Vikings to Crusader: The Scandinavians and Europe 800-1200; New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1992. Print.