Wikipedia talk:Identifying and using primary sources: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:41, 21 September 2011

Revision as of 00:01, 22 September 2011

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:::::::[[Tropical Storm Nicole (2010)]] was passed as an FA in July 2011. Has the policy been changed since then? Please take a moment to review that article and see if it is based mainly on secondary sources, according to your definition of the term.

:::::::I don't doubt that there are any number of terms used on Wikipedia that have different definitions in academia. But this isn't academia. We create our own manual of style and we have our own functional definitions of "primary" and "secondary" too. It's the job of this essay to describe Wikipedia practice, not to change it to conform to academic practices. (That may be a valid goal, but this essay isn't the place to do it unless it's recast for that purpose). &nbsp; <b>[[User:Will Beback|<font color="#595454">Will Beback</font>]]&nbsp; [[User talk:Will Beback|<font color="#C0C0C0">talk</font>]]&nbsp; </b> 22:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

{{outdent}}

Yes, academic usage differs from what we do. I think the key issue is what the newspaper is reporting. A press release, in a newspaper, is a primary SPS. A news report featuring an interview with a reporter about what they saw would be a primary source. But I would argue that a news report filed by a reporter investigating a criminal matter would be secondary, regardless of how soon after the crime it occurred, since the reporter is not reporting what they say, but what the police and witnesses said. Separation need not be temporal. <span style="text-shadow: 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em #DDDDDD">--[[User:Nuujinn|Nuujinn]] ([[User_talk:Nuujinn|talk]])</span> 00:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)