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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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* The work is a specialist piece by an expert on a particular topic, but the detail you wish to use is from a completely different field, and the author, with no credentials in that field, doesn't provide a source. This arises frequently in non-fiction books. Look for corroborating material from actual experts in that other discipline.
* The claim you want to cite is a novel conclusion reached by the author of the piece; this makes it a primary source for that claim. In [[Peer review|peer-reviewed]] journals, such material mostly takes the form of the newly-collected data and results/conclusions material in the article or paper (and the summary of this material in the abstract); there may be many pages of secondary-source material leading up to and supporting it. Primary research is often provisionally cited in Wikipedia, with attribution (e.g. to the author, the research team, or to the paper); a secondary source should also be provided when available, as primary claims are always suspect – current research is constantly being overturned by newer research. For science material, the usual secondary source is a [[literature review]]. We like to have both, because secondary sources indicate acceptance by other experts and are more understandable by more readers, while primary ones provide details and are especially useful to university students and experts using Wikipedia.
* The item you want to use is a subjective opinion. You may still be able to use it, as a primary source, if you attribute the claim directly, either to the author(s) of the piece you are citing (if notable, e.g., "According to Jane Q. McPublic ..."), or to its publisher (e.g., "According to a 2017 ''New York Times'' article ..."). If neither are notable, are you sure the source is actually [[WP:RS|reliable at all]]? Primary-source opinion pieces take many forms, including editorials and op-eds, advice columns, book and film reviews, press releases, position statements, speeches, autobiographical content, interviews, legal testimony, marketing or activism materials, and overly personalized instances of investigative journalism. Such content often appears in publications that otherwise provide the kinds of secondary-source material on which Wikipedia mostly relies, such as newspapers.
* The work is outdated and does not reflect current expert consensus about the matter at hand. In such a case, the newer sourcing should be used. Include the contrary viewpoint, attributed to its author, only if it seems pertinent to continue including it (e.g. to highlight a controversy, or to cover changing views of the topic over time). A general rule of thumb in research is that very old sources, or sources close in time to an event (i.e. "old" after a few months have passed and more analysis has been done by other writers) should be treated as if they are primary sources like eye-witness accounts and opinion pieces.
* The work is a tertiary source, like a topical encyclopedia, [[coffee-table book]], or other conglomeration and summarization of material from numerous other sources. Such works are often not written by experts, contain material that is already obsolete by the time the work is published, gloss over important distinctions and limitations in previously published research conclusions, and may reflect a strong editorial bias. Tertiary sources are better than no sources, but they do not stand up to challenge from secondary ones.
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== See also ==
* [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]]
* [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]]
* [[Wikipedia:No original research]]
* [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]]
* [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources]]
'''Essays
* [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist]]
* [[Wikipedia:Cherrypicking]]
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