Anyone can contribute to a Wikipedia article.
However, detailed information about authors' credentials and purpose is not provided.
If you don't know the credentials and purpose of the author, it's not a good source for academic research.
While Wikipedia is not a good source for an academic paper, it can be useful in other ways:
- it can provide a basic overview of your topic
- it sometimes provides a table of contents, helping you to understand how your topic can be organized
- it can introduce you to important names and vocabulary related to your topic
- it can provide a list of references and other websites that may be appropriate (though you will need to evaluate them to be sure)