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| Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight. The reliability of a source depends on the context: A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source about biology. However, the author of a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has become recognized as having expertise in that secondary area of study. In general, an article should use the most reliable and ''appropriate'' published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views, in line with ]. | Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight. The reliability of a source depends on the context: A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source about biology. However, the author of a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has become recognized as having expertise in that secondary area of study. In general, an article should use the most reliable and ''appropriate'' published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views, in line with ]. | ||
| Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources. All articles must adhere to Misplaced Pages's ], fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the ] of each view.<ref>Tiny-minority views and fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them.</ref><p> | |||
| See ] for how and when to use self-published and questionable sources. | |||
| In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.<p> | |||
| Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text. | |||
| ===Questionable sources=== | |||
| Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. (See ].) Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources. | |||
| <span id="SELF"></span> | |||
| ===Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves=== | |||
| {{policy shortcut|WP:SELFPUB}} | |||
| Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as: | |||
| * it is relevant to their notability; | |||
| * it is not contentious; | |||
| * it is not unduly self-serving; | |||
| * it does not involve claims about third parties; | |||
| * it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; | |||
| * there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it; | |||
| * the article is not based primarily on such sources. | |||
| ==Why use reliable sources?== | ==Why use reliable sources?== | ||
| Line 26: | Line 48: | ||
| {{see|Misplaced Pages:Verifiability}} | {{see|Misplaced Pages:Verifiability}} | ||
| Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made. | Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made. | ||
| ===Scholarship=== | |||
| Misplaced Pages relies heavily upon the established literature created by scientists, scholars and researchers around the world. Items that fit this criterion are usually considered reliable. However, they may be outdated by more recent research, or controversial in the sense that there are alternative scholarly explanations. Misplaced Pages articles should point to all major scholarly interpretations of a topic. | |||
| * The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. | |||
| * Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred. | |||
| * Items that are signed are more reliable than unsigned articles because it tells whether an expert wrote it and took responsibility for it. | |||
| === Exceptional claims require exceptional sources === | === Exceptional claims require exceptional sources === | ||
| Line 37: | Line 65: | ||
| Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple high quality reliable sources, especially regarding scientific or medical topics, historical events, politically charged issues, and in ]. | Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple high quality reliable sources, especially regarding scientific or medical topics, historical events, politically charged issues, and in ]. | ||
| ⚫ | === Claims of consensus === | ||
| ⚫ | Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. |
||
| ===Types of source material=== | ===Types of source material=== | ||
| :See '']'' | :See '']'' | ||
| *''']s''' are documents or people very close to the situation being written about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is a primary source. United Nations Security Council resolutions are primary sources. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Misplaced Pages, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Misplaced Pages passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source. Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded ] of laboratory and ] experiments or observations; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs. | |||
| *''']s''' draw on primary sources to make generalizations or interpretive, analytical, or synthetic claims. A journalist's story about a traffic accident or a Security Council resolution is a secondary source, assuming the journalist was not personally involved in either. An historian's interpretation of the decline of the Roman Empire, or analysis of the historical Jesus, is a secondary source. '''Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources.''' | |||
| *''']s''' are publications such as encyclopedias that sum up other secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. (Misplaced Pages itself is a tertiary source.) Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others. For example, articles signed by experts in ] and encyclopedias of similar quality can be regarded as reliable secondary sources instead of tertiary ones. Unsigned articles may be less reliable, but they may be used so long as the encyclopedia is a high quality one. | |||
| Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is, of course, encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia. | |||
| Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are ''rare'' occasions when they may rely on primary sources. An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions. | |||
| ===Biographies of living persons=== | ===Biographies of living persons=== | ||
| :''See ]'' | :''See ]'' | ||
| Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, a biography will violate the ] and ] policies, and could lead to ] claims. | |||
| Material available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. '''Material from ] books, ]s, websites, and ]s should never be used''' as a source about a living person, including as an external link, unless written or published by the subject of the article (]). | |||
| Editors should avoid repeating gossip published by tabloids and scandal sheets. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an ''encyclopedia'' article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include ]. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we? | |||
| Editors should also be careful about perpetuating a vicious feedback loop in which an unsourced and speculative contention in a Misplaced Pages article gets picked up, with or without attribution, in an otherwise-reliable newspaper or other media story, and that story is then cited in the Misplaced Pages article to support the original speculative contention. Editors who suspect that this sort of feedback loop has occurred should be especially careful to see if there are other independent, reliable, sources -- outside the loop itself -- for the contentious claim. | |||
| ====Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material==== | |||
| Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in ], or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see ]). If the material is derogatory and unsourced or poorly sourced, the ]. Content may be re-inserted when it conforms to this policy. | |||
| These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Misplaced Pages, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the ] and ]. | |||
| Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no ] version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see ] criterion ] for more details). | |||
| ] has said it is better to have no information at all than to include speculation, and has emphasized the need for sensitivity: | |||
| {{Quotation|I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.<ref name=Jimbo/>}} | |||
| ===Self-published sources (online and paper)=== | ===Self-published sources (online and paper)=== | ||
| :''See ]'' | :''See ]'' | ||
| Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and ]s are largely not acceptable as sources.<ref>"Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. | |||
| See e.g., ] for an often-cited example deletion discussion covering this matter. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control; that is, when it isn't really a blog. Posts left on these columns by readers may never be used as sources.</ref> | |||
| Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work '''in the relevant field''' has previously been published by '''reliable third-party publications'''. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. | |||
| Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see ]. | |||
| ===Extremist sources=== | |||
| Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves and their activities '''in articles about themselves''', and even then with caution. | |||
| ⚫ | === Claims of consensus === | ||
| ⚫ | Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. | ||
| ==Convenience links== | ==Convenience links== | ||
| :''See ]'' | :''See ]'' | ||
| The term "convenience link" is typically used to indicate a link to a copy of a resource somewhere on the Internet, offered in addition to a formal ] to the same resource in its original format. For example, an editor providing a citation to ] famous work '']'' might choose to include both a citation to a published copy of the work and a link to the work on the internet, as follows: | |||
| <blockquote>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Adam |authorlink=Adam Smith |editor=ed. Edwin Cannan |title=The Wealth of Nations |origyear=1776 |edition=Fifth edition |date=1904 |publisher=Methuen and Co |location=London}}, available at </blockquote> | |||
| Such links are unique in how reliability is applied. It is important to ensure that the copy being linked is a true copy of the original, without any comments, amendations, edits or changes. When the "convenience link" is hosted by a site that is considered reliable on its own, this is relatively easy to assume. However, when such a link is hosted on a less reliable site, the linked version should be checked for accuracy against the original, or not linked at all if such verification is not possible. | |||
| ==Examples== | ==Examples== | ||
Revision as of 07:42, 12 August 2007
 | This page documents an English Misplaced Pages content guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. | Shortcuts |
Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published sources. This page is a guideline, not a policy, and is mandatory only insofar as it repeats material from policy pages. The relevant policies on sources are Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research.
Misplaced Pages:Verifiability says that any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source, as do quotations, and the responsibility for finding a source lies with the person who adds or restores the material. Sometimes it is better to have no information than to have information without a source.
See Misplaced Pages:Verifiability/Noticeboard for queries about the reliability of particular sources; see Misplaced Pages talk:Verifiability for queries about the policy.
What is a reliable source?
Further information: Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of viewReliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight. The reliability of a source depends on the context: A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source about biology. However, the author of a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has become recognized as having expertise in that secondary area of study. In general, an article should use the most reliable and appropriate published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views, in line with Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view.
Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources. All articles must adhere to Misplaced Pages's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view.
In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.
Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text.
Questionable sources
Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.
Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves
ShortcutMaterial from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as:
- it is relevant to their notability;
- it is not contentious;
- it is not unduly self-serving;
- it does not involve claims about third parties;
- it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
- there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it;
- the article is not based primarily on such sources.
Why use reliable sources?
Further information: Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, Misplaced Pages:No original research, Misplaced Pages:Citing sources, and Misplaced Pages:CopyrightsSources are used:
- To support an assertion made in an article. Sources used in this manner should be directly referenced for the point that is being supported.
- To give credit to the source, to avoid the appearance of plagiarism or copyright violations.
If all the sources for a given statement or topic are of low reliability, the material may not be suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages.
Aspects of reliability
Further information: Misplaced Pages:VerifiabilityArticles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made.
Scholarship
Misplaced Pages relies heavily upon the established literature created by scientists, scholars and researchers around the world. Items that fit this criterion are usually considered reliable. However, they may be outdated by more recent research, or controversial in the sense that there are alternative scholarly explanations. Misplaced Pages articles should point to all major scholarly interpretations of a topic.
- The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
- Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred.
- Items that are signed are more reliable than unsigned articles because it tells whether an expert wrote it and took responsibility for it.
Exceptional claims require exceptional sources
Shortcut See also: Misplaced Pages:Fringe theoriesCertain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim.
- Surprising or apparently important claims that are not widely known.
- Surprising or apparently important reports of recent events not covered by reliable news media.
- Reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended.
- Claims not supported or claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community. Be particularly careful when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them.
Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple high quality reliable sources, especially regarding scientific or medical topics, historical events, politically charged issues, and in material about living people.
Types of source material
- Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation being written about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is a primary source. United Nations Security Council resolutions are primary sources. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Misplaced Pages, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Misplaced Pages passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source. Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs.
- Secondary sources draw on primary sources to make generalizations or interpretive, analytical, or synthetic claims. A journalist's story about a traffic accident or a Security Council resolution is a secondary source, assuming the journalist was not personally involved in either. An historian's interpretation of the decline of the Roman Empire, or analysis of the historical Jesus, is a secondary source. Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources.
- Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias that sum up other secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. (Misplaced Pages itself is a tertiary source.) Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others. For example, articles signed by experts in Encyclopaedia Britannica and encyclopedias of similar quality can be regarded as reliable secondary sources instead of tertiary ones. Unsigned articles may be less reliable, but they may be used so long as the encyclopedia is a high quality one.
Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is, of course, encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.
Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources. An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.
Biographies of living persons
Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, a biography will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims.
Material available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Material from self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source about a living person, including as an external link, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below).
Editors should avoid repeating gossip published by tabloids and scandal sheets. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?
Editors should also be careful about perpetuating a vicious feedback loop in which an unsourced and speculative contention in a Misplaced Pages article gets picked up, with or without attribution, in an otherwise-reliable newspaper or other media story, and that story is then cited in the Misplaced Pages article to support the original speculative contention. Editors who suspect that this sort of feedback loop has occurred should be especially careful to see if there are other independent, reliable, sources -- outside the loop itself -- for the contentious claim.
Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material
Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Misplaced Pages:No original research). If the material is derogatory and unsourced or poorly sourced, the three-revert rule does not apply to its removal. Content may be re-inserted when it conforms to this policy.
These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Misplaced Pages, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Misplaced Pages:Libel.
Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no neutral version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).
Jimmy Wales has said it is better to have no information at all than to include speculation, and has emphasized the need for sensitivity:
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
Self-published sources (online and paper)
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.
Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.
Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP.
Extremist sources
Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves and their activities in articles about themselves, and even then with caution.
Claims of consensus
Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources.
Convenience links
The term "convenience link" is typically used to indicate a link to a copy of a resource somewhere on the Internet, offered in addition to a formal citation to the same resource in its original format. For example, an editor providing a citation to Adam Smith's famous work The Wealth of Nations might choose to include both a citation to a published copy of the work and a link to the work on the internet, as follows:
Smith, Adam (1904) . ed. Edwin Cannan (ed.). The Wealth of Nations (Fifth edition ed.). London: Methuen and Co.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help);|editor=has generic name (help), available at Wikisource
Such links are unique in how reliability is applied. It is important to ensure that the copy being linked is a true copy of the original, without any comments, amendations, edits or changes. When the "convenience link" is hosted by a site that is considered reliable on its own, this is relatively easy to assume. However, when such a link is hosted on a less reliable site, the linked version should be checked for accuracy against the original, or not linked at all if such verification is not possible.
Examples
See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/examples for examples of the use of statistical data, advice by subject area (including history, physical sciences, mathematics and medicine, law, Business and Commerce, popular culture and fiction), and the use of electronic or online sources.
See also
- Misplaced Pages:Check your facts, essay
- Misplaced Pages:Common knowledge, essay
- Misplaced Pages:Independent sources, essay
- Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
- Misplaced Pages:Verifiability
- Misplaced Pages:No original research
- Misplaced Pages:Citing sources
External links
- How to Read a Primary Source, Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students, Patrick Rael, 2004.
- How to Read a Secondary Source, Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students, Patrick Rael, 2004.
- Tiny-minority views and fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them.
- Cite error: The named reference
Jimbowas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - "Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. See e.g., Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/The_Game_(game)_(6th_nomination) for an often-cited example deletion discussion covering this matter. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control; that is, when it isn't really a blog. Posts left on these columns by readers may never be used as sources.