Help:How to mine a source: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:38, 12 July 2017

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==A caution on misapplication==

Care must be taken not to apply this approach to works that are not actually reliable sources for the material in question. A source is mainly about one thing or two, but it may have other points that can be used to expand an article. This must, however, be done within allowable limits of the [[WP:CCP|Wikipedia core content policies]]. One must be aware in particular of [[WP:PSTS|the distinctions between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources]], because thisa case of misuse of situationmaterial can arise for multiple reasons:

* The work is a magazine article or other piece of lower-end journalism, mentioning something in passing or as a side comment, without any indication what the ultimate source is. Many "factoid" sidebars and tables in regular news articles are also in the "low-end journalism" category, as they frequently misinterpret and misrepresent the data on which they are based. Look for the real sources of the data.

* 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 frequentlyoften 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.