Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a huge online encyclopedia that is FREE FREE FREE. It is a work in progress built by hundreds of thousands if not millions of volunteers around the world. Wikipedia claims to be a not-for-profit entity with the goal of granting open access to the sum total of human knowledge. What has helped Wikipedia is the wiki technology, which allows users to read and edit from anywhere on the planet, and Wikipedia's policies.

 Articles placed on Wikipedia are subject to strict rules that include
 * verifiability
 * neutrality
 * citation of relevant sources

 The story is that any information placed on Wikipedia has to be found in a reputable book, magazine, or newspaper. (So paper isn't passe after all) What's more, articles are supposed to be written so they do not endorse any specific view. If a specific view is mentioned, an opposing view must also be shared. You'll also find a list of sources of the information that appears in the article. The beauty of the system is that if a user finds that an article doesn't meet with Wikipedia's standards, the user can change the article. Changes are tracked.

 If you haven't given Wikipedia a try, please do so. I wouldn't suggest using Wikipedia as your sole source of information for any research project, but then I wouldn't recommend any one source of information anyway.