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SMcCandlish (talk | contribs) →See also: MOS:DLIST - don't abuse description-list markup to create fake subheadings. Just use boldface. |
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{{redirect|WP:MINE|text=For the Wikipedia policy on page possessiveness, see [[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]. For WikiData's ContentMine-based project, see [[:Wikidata:Wikidata:WikiFactMine]].}}
{{Wikipedia how to|WP:SOURCEMINE|WP:MINE}}
{{Nutshell|Sources are rarely plundered for all they are worth, and articles with "citation needed" tags often already have sufficient sources that simply have been under-utilized. Most new sources added for a detail or two can also be dug into for additional sourcing value.}}
[[File:Underground Mining team.jpg|thumb|Mining information requires the right reliable source and lots of hard work.|300x300px]]
It is very common for Wikipedia editors to add a [[WP:CITE|citation]], such as to a newspaper or magazine article, a book chapter, or other hopefully [[WP:RS|reliable]] publication, to [[WP:V|source the verifiability]] of a single fact in an article. Most often the editor has found this source via a search engine, or perhaps even a library visit, seeking a source for a detail in an article, some pesky tidbit without a citation. This common approach tends to miss many opportunities to improve both the content and the sourcing of articles; it's akin to stopping at a grocery store for bread and nothing else, rather than "working" the store for an hour with a long shopping list and an eye for bargains.
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|publisher=Everett & Co
|___location=London, England
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2yBIAAAAIAAJ
|accessdate=2011-11-18
}}</ref></p></blockquote>
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Attention was first drawn to this chapter because of its mention of similar cats in Cornwall and Crimea, details other sources so far had not discussed. But there is actually a quite large number of facts (i.e., in Wikipedia terms, nontrivial statements of fact from an independent, non-fringe, apparently reliable, professionally published work) to be dug like gems from this source.
==Mining this source for all
It is tempting to simply skim this source and edit the article for a point or two and move on, but it's quite easy to miss something (indeed, the fact that Manx cats were thought of by Barton as scarce and possibly even declining was missed until preparation of this essay). It is best to '''make a list of facts''' (e.g. in a sandbox page or a text editor), in wiki markup and in sentences, or at least easily reusable sentence-fragment form, and already carefully rewriting to avoid plagiarism. Start with the first sentence and work your way down. It might look something like this, including square-bracketed notes based on sources already cited in the article:
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== See also ==
* [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]]
* [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]]
* [[Wikipedia:No original research]]
* [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]]
* [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources]]
* [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist]]
* [[Wikipedia:Cherrypicking]]
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