Verifiability
Why references are important
Adding references
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Editing existing ones
Always room for improvement
Reusing references
Some are just really useful
Reliable sources
Which sources are good enough?
Summary
Review of what you've learned
All of the statements below happen to be true, but only some are adequately supported by a reliable source. Can you guess which ones?
On January 18, 2012, the English Wikipedia conducted a 24-hour blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, impacting 162 million readers.[1]
- ^ Lee, Dave (19 January 2012). "Sopa and Pipa protests not over, says Wikipedia". BBC News. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
Reliable. As a respected mainstream news organization, news articles from BBC News are considered generally reliable.The Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that $101 billion was spent in 2013 on the preventable disease of diabetes, and another $88 billion was spent on heart disease.[1]
- ^ Dieleman, Joseph L.; Baral, Ranju; Birger, Maxwell; Bui, Anthony L.; Bulchis, Anne; Chapin, Abigail; Hamavid, Hannah; Horst, Cody; Johnson, Elizabeth K. (2016-12-27). "US Spending on Personal Health Care and Public Health, 1996-2013". JAMA. 316 (24): 2627–2646. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.16885. ISSN 0098-7484. PMC 5551483. PMID 28027366.
Reliable. JAMA is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association. It is considered generally reliable, even under the heightened standard for medical claims.Human eye color is determined by the composition of two parts of the iris. Both pigmentation and Tyndall scattering contribute to the ultimate coloration.[1]
Not reliable. Reddit is user-generated content, which is generally considered unreliable. Even if the author asserts that they are an eye doctor, we cannot verify that claim.At a 2015 Peking Duk concert, a fan managed to get backstage after tricking a security guard into thinking he was Reuben Styles' step-brother by editing the band's Wikipedia page.[1]
- ^ Russell, Jennifer (4 December 2015). "Man tricks security into letting him backstage by editing Wikipedia". Daily Mail.
Not reliable. Due to its poor editorial standards that have resulted in the publication of numerous falsehoods, the Daily Mail is considered generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is generally prohibited.Less than 3 percent of the geotagged articles on Wikipedia are for places in Africa, despite the continent having 14 percent of the world's population.[1]
- ^ Guerrini, Federico (25 July 2018). "Wikipedia Releases Transparency Report And Pledges To Improve Diversity". Forbes.
Not reliable. Forbes, a well-known American business magazine, might seem at first glance like a reliable source. And indeed, content written by Forbes staffers is considered generally reliable. However, this article was not written by a Forbes staffer, but rather by an unaffiliated contributor. Such articles have little editorial oversight and are considered generally unreliable.The Center for Urban Forest Research estimates that shade from the 26,000 trees in Claremont, California, saves the city more than 2.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year in reduced air conditioning costs, equivalent to more than $468,000 in savings.[1]
- ^ Bramlett, Matthew (29 March 2019). "Managing Claremont's urban forest". Claremont Courier. Archived from the original on November 28, 2020.
Reliable. The Claremont Courier is a community newspaper serving Claremont, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Since it is a small publication, it has never been formally discussed at the reliable sources noticeboard. However, per its page, it is considered Claremont's newspaper of record, and in 2018, it was named the top community newspaper in California by the California News Publishers Association. Given this, it is safe to assume that, if it were to be discussed at the noticeboard, it would be found generally reliable.A 2008 culture jamming operation placed "citation needed" stickers on advertisements around New York City.[1]
Not reliable. Know Your Meme is a wiki, just like Wikipedia, that publishes user-generated content. Therefore, it is generally considered unreliable, since we cannot verify that its information came from a source we can trust.Although Stanford University has no official school mascot, each year a student is chosen to be the "Stanford Tree" and wears a costume of their own creation.[1]
- ^ Beyer, Brooke (3 April 2020). "43rd Stanford Tree talks stunts, branching out". The Stanford Daily.
Reliable. The Stanford Daily is the student newspaper of Stanford University. Reputable student media outlets like The Daily are considered generally reliable sources for news on their school and local community. They can sometimes be considered reliable on other topics, although professional sources are typically preferred when available.In May 2019, Leo Burnett Tailor Made, a marketing agency for The North Face Brazil, revealed that they had surreptitiously replaced photos of popular outdoor destinations on Wikipedia with photos featuring North Face products in an attempt to get those products to appear more prominently in search engine results.[1]
- ^ "The North Face platzierte Schleichwerbung bei Google und Wikipedia". Der Spiegel (in German). 31 May 2019.
Reliable. Der Spiegel is a highly respected German news magazine, and is considered generally reliable. Although it publishes in German, not English, this is allowed. Paywalled and offline sources are acceptable, too.It is not possible to preserve the environment while continuing to consume meat at current levels.[1]
- ^ Foer, Jonathan Safran (21 May 2020). "The End of Meat Is Here". The New York Times.
Not reliable. The New York Times is one of the United States' newspapers of record and is considered generally reliable. This article, however, is not a reported news article, but an opinion piece asserting the views of its author. It could be used to support the sentence Jonathan Safran Foer believes that it is not possible to preserve the environment while continuing to consume meat at current levels.It cannot be used without attributing the statement to Foer, as was done above.
