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A journal article would certainly count as a secondary source (unless of course you were talking about the source itself)! And is always preferred over a media

by ErrantX 14y ago

A journal article would certainly count as a secondary source (unless of course you were talking about the source itself)! And is always preferred over a media report. Now if your argument was that Wikipedia suffers from "recentism", whereby lots of topics are based on media reports and lack more in depth literature to establish historical interest, then we would be in agreement. But the Wikipedia community is well aware of the importance of peer reviewed literature. The Medicine wiki-project, for example, has specific sourcing policies[1] for medical articles that specifies literature reviews as good sources. In fact, Wikipedians are working to get access to professional literature. There is a resource exchange page where we help each other get access to specific journal articles. And one particular editor has been working hard to get free accounts for things like Credo reference etc. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS

saurik 14y ago
I found your response highly surprising, and I see my confusion now: Wikipedia is making (I will even admit correctly) a distinction between actual research (which it very clearly calls a "primary source") and a "review paper" (which it calls a "secondary source"). [references below] You really thereby can't say "a journal article would certainly count as a secondary source", as most journal articles are research, not reviews of research: the page you link to even very directly states "many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources". Of course, I will totally admit that at least some of the articles in JSTOR are going to be review papers, and thereby must retract part of my previous statement as written. In the specific case of JSTOR from those examples, and thereby my entire first aside, there would be at least some marginal benefit, even under Wikipedia's rules. However, I will point out that the underlying argument I was making quite stands: sending people to conferences, teaching them more about historiography, and getting them access to more sources of research, are all ways to make people better at performing what Wikipedia continues to call "original research" (and clearly wants no part in). Put differently, the goal of these activities is to make people better at interpreting primary information, not copy/pasting secondary information. Indeed, Wikipedia makes it quite clear that primary sources may only be used in cases where people with no specialized knowledge can plainly understand the information (which, honestly, to me seems unlikely to be plausible: journal articles are not written for the layperson), and even goes so far as to be quite explicit that secondary sources must be used to make the primary sources trustworthy. <edit> It does, however, at least seem like the medical parts of Wikipedia do not believe that a newspaper article is even a valid secondary source, so good on them. ;P I tried to find a similar document for the field of History, and they do seem to be working on a similar document (still marked "essay") and it also looks like it could be pretty good (as in, "no journalism"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(history) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_... (I imagine an interesting benefit with Wikipedia/History is that you don't run experiments, so of course much of the material you find is technically a secondary source; you thereby don't actually find the usual discussion of "primary" vs. "secondary" in this essay: "primary" gets defined as the actual source documents, as arguably history is all opinion ;P.) Even reading the history-specific documentation, however, does not seem to indicate that you could both follow the rules and get much value out of having a strong background in history and history research: I maintain that attending conferences and taking courses in the field is seemingly not something that Wikipedia would look favorably on. This quote, however, was quite uplifting: "Historical articles on wikipedia should be the result of scholarly works.". </edit> (additional quotes from Wikipedia backing up my statements:) "...similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment." "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." "For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research "A primary source in medicine is one in which the authors directly participated in the research or documented their personal experiences. ... Many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made." "A secondary source is... Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations." "All Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources. Reliable primary sources may occasionally be used with care as an adjunct to the secondary literature, but there remains potential for misuse." (emphasis copied from original) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS
- ErrantX 14y ago
  I chose the Medicine project because it is an example where they have identified an issue (bad sourcing can have real world consequence) and built on the Wikipedia sourcing policies to fit with how medicine operates academically. I imagine an interesting benefit with Wikipedia/History is that you don't run experiments, so of course much of the material you find is technically a secondary source; you thereby don't actually find the usual discussion of "primary" vs. "secondary" in this essay: "primary" gets defined as the actual source documents, as arguably history is all opinion ;P. Absolutely this! And outside of science this is how it almost always works. A journal article will 99% of the time be a secondary source. I maintain that attending conferences and taking courses in the field is seemingly not something that Wikipedia would look favorably on. It depends what the intended outcome is. Wikipedia deliberately pushes the idea that editors should not argue from the point of an expert - as such qualifications are impossible to prove, and other editors as badly placed to peer review your argument/work. On the other hand training in your chosen topic is useful! I've attended a number of sessions organised by Wikimedia chapters which put Wikipedians together with, say, historians so they can collaborate and learn from each other. sending people to conferences, teaching them more about historiography, and getting them access to more sources of research, are all ways to make people better at performing what Wikipedia continues to call "original research" (and clearly wants no part in). I'm not sure I agree at all here. Anyone wishing to write about a topic should have a good understanding of it, an understanding of research and citation and so forth. So those skills would be encouraged! (as an aside; it is this skill deficit that puts many Wikipedians off and ties back into the decline the article mentions) Original research is another matter, unrelated to tracking down source material and understanding context. Put differently, the goal of these activities is to make people better at interpreting primary information, not copy/pasting secondary information. Again I disagree. Wikipedia doesn't want editors interpreting sources, but it also doesn't want blind copy/paste. Writing tertiary articles requires us to maintain an objective view of the material and to have good editorial judgement in choosing how to summarise the topic. The point of "no original research" is to stop Wikipedians inserting their own views or conclusions - so long as a view we record can be verified in a source and is balanced within the context of the article/topic then that meets this rule. To put it another way. Writing a tertiary article often requires extensive skill in researching the secondary material, summarising the academic consensus on the topic and making sure that summary is objective and unbiased by your own views. The key word in "no original research" is original :) The problem of primary versus secondary sourcing is one that is not even well understood by a lot of editors - so it is no wonder it gets questioned. But in practice the policy is trying to avoid the situation where Wikipedians themselves research primary sources to draw their own (often non-expert) conclusions. Therefore avoiding material subjective to an individual editor. A core problem that does exist is that outside of science and history there is often a strong reliance of media reporting. And scholarly literature either doesn't exist for that topic, or is rudimentary (I mean, who is going to write a scholarly article about Justin Beiber). Policies that allow modern-style sourcing for such articles but also strongly favour scholarly material when it is available are hard to write :)

by ErrantX 14y ago

saurik 14y ago

I found your response highly surprising, and I see my confusion now: Wikipedia is making (I will even admit correctly) a distinction between actual research (which it very clearly calls a "primary source") and a "review paper" (which it calls a "secondary source"). [references below] You really thereby can't say "a journal article would certainly count as a secondary source", as most journal articles are research, not reviews of research: the page you link to even very directly states "many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources". Of course, I will totally admit that at least some of the articles in JSTOR are going to be review papers, and thereby must retract part of my previous statement as written. In the specific case of JSTOR from those examples, and thereby my entire first aside, there would be at least some marginal benefit, even under Wikipedia's rules. However, I will point out that the underlying argument I was making quite stands: sending people to conferences, teaching them more about historiography, and getting them access to more sources of research, are all ways to make people better at performing what Wikipedia continues to call "original research" (and clearly wants no part in). Put differently, the goal of these activities is to make people better at interpreting primary information, not copy/pasting secondary information. Indeed, Wikipedia makes it quite clear that primary sources may only be used in cases where people with no specialized knowledge can plainly understand the information (which, honestly, to me seems unlikely to be plausible: journal articles are not written for the layperson), and even goes so far as to be quite explicit that secondary sources must be used to make the primary sources trustworthy. <edit> It does, however, at least seem like the medical parts of Wikipedia do not believe that a newspaper article is even a valid secondary source, so good on them. ;P I tried to find a similar document for the field of History, and they do seem to be working on a similar document (still marked "essay") and it also looks like it could be pretty good (as in, "no journalism"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(history) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_... (I imagine an interesting benefit with Wikipedia/History is that you don't run experiments, so of course much of the material you find is technically a secondary source; you thereby don't actually find the usual discussion of "primary" vs. "secondary" in this essay: "primary" gets defined as the actual source documents, as arguably history is all opinion ;P.) Even reading the history-specific documentation, however, does not seem to indicate that you could both follow the rules and get much value out of having a strong background in history and history research: I maintain that attending conferences and taking courses in the field is seemingly not something that Wikipedia would look favorably on. This quote, however, was quite uplifting: "Historical articles on wikipedia should be the result of scholarly works.". </edit> (additional quotes from Wikipedia backing up my statements:) "...similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment." "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." "For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research "A primary source in medicine is one in which the authors directly participated in the research or documented their personal experiences. ... Many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made." "A secondary source is... Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations." "All Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources. Reliable primary sources may occasionally be used with care as an adjunct to the secondary literature, but there remains potential for misuse." (emphasis copied from original) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MEDRS

ErrantX 14y ago
I chose the Medicine project because it is an example where they have identified an issue (bad sourcing can have real world consequence) and built on the Wikipedia sourcing policies to fit with how medicine operates academically. I imagine an interesting benefit with Wikipedia/History is that you don't run experiments, so of course much of the material you find is technically a secondary source; you thereby don't actually find the usual discussion of "primary" vs. "secondary" in this essay: "primary" gets defined as the actual source documents, as arguably history is all opinion ;P. Absolutely this! And outside of science this is how it almost always works. A journal article will 99% of the time be a secondary source. I maintain that attending conferences and taking courses in the field is seemingly not something that Wikipedia would look favorably on. It depends what the intended outcome is. Wikipedia deliberately pushes the idea that editors should not argue from the point of an expert - as such qualifications are impossible to prove, and other editors as badly placed to peer review your argument/work. On the other hand training in your chosen topic is useful! I've attended a number of sessions organised by Wikimedia chapters which put Wikipedians together with, say, historians so they can collaborate and learn from each other. sending people to conferences, teaching them more about historiography, and getting them access to more sources of research, are all ways to make people better at performing what Wikipedia continues to call "original research" (and clearly wants no part in). I'm not sure I agree at all here. Anyone wishing to write about a topic should have a good understanding of it, an understanding of research and citation and so forth. So those skills would be encouraged! (as an aside; it is this skill deficit that puts many Wikipedians off and ties back into the decline the article mentions) Original research is another matter, unrelated to tracking down source material and understanding context. Put differently, the goal of these activities is to make people better at interpreting primary information, not copy/pasting secondary information. Again I disagree. Wikipedia doesn't want editors interpreting sources, but it also doesn't want blind copy/paste. Writing tertiary articles requires us to maintain an objective view of the material and to have good editorial judgement in choosing how to summarise the topic. The point of "no original research" is to stop Wikipedians inserting their own views or conclusions - so long as a view we record can be verified in a source and is balanced within the context of the article/topic then that meets this rule. To put it another way. Writing a tertiary article often requires extensive skill in researching the secondary material, summarising the academic consensus on the topic and making sure that summary is objective and unbiased by your own views. The key word in "no original research" is original :) The problem of primary versus secondary sourcing is one that is not even well understood by a lot of editors - so it is no wonder it gets questioned. But in practice the policy is trying to avoid the situation where Wikipedians themselves research primary sources to draw their own (often non-expert) conclusions. Therefore avoiding material subjective to an individual editor. A core problem that does exist is that outside of science and history there is often a strong reliance of media reporting. And scholarly literature either doesn't exist for that topic, or is rudimentary (I mean, who is going to write a scholarly article about Justin Beiber). Policies that allow modern-style sourcing for such articles but also strongly favour scholarly material when it is available are hard to write :)