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Anarchopedia:Reliable sources
This is a guideline discussing the reliability of sources. Anarchopedia articles must cover all major and significant minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources.
Anarchopedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. A reliable source can be defined as a credible published material with a reliable publication process; the author of the source is generally considered to be trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made; if an article topic has no reliable sources, Anarchopedia should not have an article on it.
Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources
For the purposes of Anarchopedia policies and guidelines, primary, secondary, and tertiary sources are defined as follows:[1]
- Primary source: Primary sources are sources very close to the origin of a particular topic. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is an example of a primary source. Other examples include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field research, experiments or observations, published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research; original philosophical works, religious scripture, administrative documents, and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs.[2]
- Secondary source: Secondary sources are accounts at least one step removed from an event.[3] Secondary sources may draw on primary sources and other secondary sources to create a general overview; or to make analytic or synthetic claims.[4][5]
- Tertiary source: Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias or other compendia that sum up secondary and primary sources. For example, Anarchopedia itself is a tertiary source. Many introductory textbooks may also be considered tertiary to the extent that they sum up multiple primary and secondary sources.
Anarchopedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Anarchopedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:
- only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
- make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source.
Unsourced material obtained from a Anarchopedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would cause Anarchopedia to become a primary source for that material.
Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources. Some tertiary sources may be more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others.
Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary or secondary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages.
Notes
- ↑ Various professional fields treat the distinction between primary and secondary sources in differing fashions. Some fields and references also further distinguish between secondary and tertiary sources. Primary, secondary and tertiary sources are broadly defined here for the purposes of Anarchopedia.
- ↑ Definitions of primary sources:
- The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries define primary sources as providing "an inside view of a particular event". They offer as examples: original documents, such as autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, and speeches; creative works, such as art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry; and relics or artifacts, such as buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery.
- The University of California, Berkeley library offers this definition: "Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer."
- ↑ University of California, Berkeley library defines "secondary source" as "a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event".
- ↑ Borough of Manhattan Community College, A. Philip Randolph Memorial Library, "Research Help:Primary vs. Secondary Sources" notes that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets primary sources", is a "second-hand account of an historical event" or "interprets creative work". It also states that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets research results" or "analyzes and interprets scientific discoveries".
- ↑ The National History Day website states simply that: "Secondary sources are works of synthesis and interpretation based upon primary sources and the work of other authors."
