The authors of the article relied on several credible sources to compile their article. For example, one of the sources cited is a first-hand account of Magellan's voyage. In addition, the authors recommend other first-hand accounts as additional reading. Because the number of contemporaneous accounts is somewhat limited, the use of these sources is significant. However, the authors also use a number of secondary sources. The use of secondary sources can be as critical as the use of primary sources, because secondary sources can oftentimes provide important historical context, which may be missing in primary source documents. The sources are properly cited, though they do not contain information about the authors of the secondary sources. In this instance, an annotated bibliography might be helpful. However, many of the secondary sources are available online. For those that are not, Wikipedia standards mean that the references almost always contain sufficient information to find the reference in question. This may be even more useful than an...

Referring users directly to the source gives users the opportunity to independently evaluate a source's credibility and utility.
However, Wikipedia guidelines are, ultimately, only guidelines. For example, in the Magellan article there were links to websites. One of these links was to a website detailing the Magellanic penguin. The article did refer to the penguin in question; however, the reference seemed like a piece of fluff. The authors did not need to cite a source to put that information into the article. Moreover, there was nothing in that article that would be helpful to a researcher interested in finding more information. That example demonstrates why a researcher needs to independently evaluate the sources in Wikipedia articles.

Works Cited

Wikipedia contributors. "Ferdinand Magellan." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,

The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Dec. 2009. Web. 25 Jan. 2010.