You might have noticed that I did not used Wikipedia to define these terms. Like other professors, I don’t hate Wikipedia, as some have claimed, and often turn to it for initial information on an unknown subject. But I would NEVER never rely solely upon Wikipedia as a research source, and neither should you. Although many of its articles are well researched and written, containing sufficient references or citations to other sources, others, such as the one on political parties, are not, and may contain errors or biases. Novice researchers may not be able to tell the difference between a well-researched, unbiased article and a poorly researched, partisan one. Moreover, Wikipedia is a “tertiary source”, relying upon mostly secondary sources of other authors.