Wikipedia:Identifying and using tertiary sources: Difference between revisions
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'''Controversial material:''' Any controversial, alleged fact is essentially unsourced if the only citation it has is to a tertiary source of questionable reliability (on the particular point or generally). As with secondary sources, this can happen for any number of reasons, including source obsolescence, lack of subject-matter expertise, conflict of interest, simple error, or presentation of a [[WP:FRINGE|fringe]] idea as comparable to the generally accepted view, among other problems that can arise with a particular source. A tertiary source that is a compendium of factoids by an author with no known expertise, and which indicates nothing about the sources of its own information, is not a reliable source. Anyone could compile a large book of alleged facts, anecdotes, and folklore about any given topic, and probably find a willing publisher, without any fact-checking ever taking place. Note however that not all facts about a controversial subject are themselves controversial; there is no principle that a reliable tertiary source good enough for one article is not good enough for another because of the topic's notoriety, the amount of emotion editors bring to editing it, or the frequency with which our article on it is vandalized.
'''Complex or controversial comparisons:''' Comparative use of tertiary sources can be fraught with [[WP:Undue weight|undue weight]], [[WP:Neutral point of view|neutral point of view]], and basic [[WP:Verifiability|accuracy]] problems if the things being compared are subject to real-world contention, or are complex in nature. For example, a comparison between Christian, Judaic, and Muslim concepts of God is unlikely to produce encyclopedic results if based in whole or part on tertiary sources, which are likely to present a poorly nuanced view of complex theological questions and details of interpretation. Complex comparative work must actually be done in secondary sources cited by Wikipedia for those comparisons. The [[WP:AEIS]] policy does not permit Wikipedians themselves to engage in substantive "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis" of facts or sources.
'''Over-inclusive works:''' [[WP:Independent sources#Indiscriminate sources|Indiscriminate sources]] must be considered skeptically when determining both [[WP:Notability|notability]] and [[WP:DUE|due weight]]. Unfortunately, a large proportion of tertiary sources are indiscriminate. A guidebook that attempts to describe every restaurant in a city cannot reasonably help establish that a particular restaurant is notable. An index of every paper published about a topic in a given year tells us nothing about the critical reception of any given paper. The more inclusive, comprehensive, even "complete" that a work aims to be, the less useful it is for determining the notability of any subject it mentions. On the up side, the more comprehensive a work is, the more likely Wikipedia editors are to find reliable details in it about any subject within its purview. Thus, in a selection of tertiary sources for a topic, the source that is most reliable for [[WP:Verifiability]] purposes has a tendency to be the least valuable for notability and due weight analysis. The inverse is often not true; an exclusively selective, non-comprehensive source may well be very unreliable, too, simply because it was poorly researched and reflects a superficial, popular-opinion approach to its topic, as is often the case with coffee table books.
'''Better sources available:''' While a tertiary source can usually be used without incident to source non-controversial facts, such citations can and should be superseded by ones to reliable secondary sources. [[WP:Identifying reliable sources]] tell us: "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." It is extremely rare for a tertiary source to be the best such source, for anything, in any context; they're simply often the most readily available and easily digestible (being somewhat predigested). Sometimes a tertiary source can even be replaced with a primary one; for example, a dog breed's actual breed standard (the primary source) is more reliable for the breed's defined characteristics than a tertiary dog breed encyclopedia, though the latter might be very useful for differences and commonalities between varying standards published by different organizations, and may be a good source of additional details, like demographics and breed history. "Stacking" tertiary source citations after a sufficient secondary one [[WP:OVERCITE|is not advised]]; it does not add more verifiability to the claim in the article, it simply adds clutter.
'''Outdated material:''' An obsolete source cannot be used to "trump" newer reliable sources that present updated information, most especially when the older source states or implies a negative that cannot be proven but can be disproven easily by new data. A pertinent example (detailed [[Wikipedia:Inaccuracy#Examples of verifiable yet potentially inaccurate material|here]]) is a prominent dictionary asserting that a specific phrase was first used in publication in a certain year, while later research found older examples, disproving this assertion (with its implicit negative, that there were no earlier cases). Because most tertiary works take a long time to assemble, or (in more dynamic media) are in a constant state of being incrementally updated, it is fairly likely that some particular pieces of information in such a work have already been surpassed by the newer work of others. Some information in tertiary sources may already be obsolete before they even see publication. Sometimes the very conceptual framework behind such a work becomes obsolete, given the passage of enough time, with enough advancement and reorganization in the field to which it pertains. E.g., an decades-old tertiary list of species within a genus, based on outmoded ideas of classification, cannot be used to contradict or seek undue weight against a widely accepted re-classification arrived at through more modern research.
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