Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Sources that are reliable for some material are not reliable for other material. For instance, otherwise unreliable self-published sources are usually acceptable to support uncontroversial information about the source's author. You should always try to use the best possible source, particularly when writing about living people.
Scholarly journals are normally reliable sources, but some journals have a reputation for bias or unreliability. QuackWatch has a list of non-recommended periodicals, however, a short list of journals which should be used with extreme caution include: Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPandS), publishes from an unscientific viewpoint
Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics (see § Scholarship, above). Press releases from organizations or journals are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release.
A credible source strives to publish accurate information. These sources base their content on evidence and rarely share false or misleading details. When they do make errors, they promptly correct them. They also have standards to verify information and recognize potential biases in their work.
(News sources may be useful for non-biomedical content, such as information about "society and culture" – see WP:MEDPOP.) Primary sources should NOT normally be used as a basis for biomedical content. This is because primary biomedical literature is exploratory and often not reliable (any given primary source may be contradicted by another).
As with sources in English, if a dispute arises involving a citation to a non-English source, editors may request a quotation of relevant portions of the original source be provided, either in text, in a footnote, or on the article talk page. [h] (See Template:Request quotation.)
This doesn't mean that no article on the topic should ever exist! However, just because someday someone might write a valid, credible, verifiable article that meets Wikipedia policy does not mean that the inferior, invalid article should remain as a placeholder. Reliable sources are a requirement for an article, not an objective.
Unless the source exercises editorial control, e-prints and conference abstracts should be considered to be self-published. The above questions can be used to consider the reliability of self-published scientific material. See the policy on self-published sources at WP:SPS. Many of them are also primary sources, which should be treated with ...