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You are writing a Wikipedia article, and trying to find reliable sources for your article. You want to follow Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and research information to ensure the article's accuracy. This wiki article will teach you about using credible sources on Wikipedia.


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Steps

  1. 1
    Know what a reliable source is, on Wikipedia. The word 'source' is used on Wikipedia to define three things:
    • The type of publication
    • The author of the publication
    • The person who published the publication (this can include publication companies such as Lonely Planet)
    A reliable source is one that is subject to editorial oversight and is generally trusted to tell the truth. Some sources may be reliable for one fact, but not for others.
  2. 2
    Be sure to use published work only. If you use anything that is not published as a source, it is not counted as a reliable source. Information based on personal correspondence or your own unpublished research isn't verifiable to other editors.
  3. 3
    Review the relevant guidelines when citing sources on medical or biographical articles. Project Medicine has a guideline for identifying reliable medical sources [1] and facts about living people have additional sourcing requirements to avoid libel [2]
  4. 4
    Be careful when using magazines, blogs and newspapers as sources. Blogs may be reliable when written by an acknowledged expert or when under the editorial control of a reliable newspaper, but most blogs are not considered reliable.
  5. 5
    Refrain from using sources that are published directly by the author. Some people create and broadcast books, website or any other types of publications and publish them on their own.
  6. 6
    Understand that Wikipedia does not consider itself a reliable source, since otherwise someone could edit one Wikipedia article to win an argument at another. This also applies to other open wikis including wikiHow, and to mirrors and on-demand publishers who copy their content (with or without permission).
  7. 7
    Take arguments about whether or not a source is reliable to the article's talk page or to the reliable sources noticeboard [3].

Tips

  • Featured articles are usually reliable including articles that are locked.


Related wikiHows

Evaluate the Credibility of a Source

How to
Evaluate the Credibility of a Source

Sources and Citations

Article Info

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