Betty

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Welcome to Wikipedia, BettyJJ! I am RP459 and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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-- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 16:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, but look deeper

Unfortunately there are many kinds of *mistakes* here at Wikipedia. One of those is vandal edits. You fixed the formatting, but what you fixed was actually vandalism. Please keep looking for errors, but there are also bad guys here (just like in the world). Shenme (talk) 22:57, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't look deeper. Thank you for the heads-up. Betty (talk) 13:13, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

RS v. MEDRS

Hi, I noticed your questions about primary/secondary sources. Articles about medical topics follow a stricter sourcing policy, WP:MEDRS. In the context of MEDRS (quoting):

* A primary source is one in which the authors directly participated in the research and documented their personal experiences. They examined the patients, injected the rats, ran the experiments, or supervised those who did. Many papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made.

• A secondary source summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources to provide an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies. 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.
• A tertiary source summarizes a range of secondary sources. Undergraduate or graduate level textbooks, edited scientific books, lay scientific books, and encyclopedias are tertiary sources.

Per the Wikipedia policies of neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiability, articles need to be based on reliable, independent, published secondary or tertiary sources.

I avoid medical topics, but it looks like your edit to Metformin cited a primary source by the definition of MEDRS. Hope that helps! Schazjmd (talk) 14:43, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I didn't know that medical topics follow a stricter sourcing policy. That makes sense now.

However, then Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources is a bit misleading. It explicitly says "academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science." If academic and peer-reviewed publications are not good enough for medical topics unless they are at least secondary, that policy page should be reworded and state that clearly.

Actually the policy pages feel a little self-contradictory. Since most academic papers are primary sources, they actually make poor sourcing according to the policy. A more precise guideline seems to be something like this: "Academic papers describing the authors' own research are not good sources and should be avoided if possible. The only academic papers you can safely use are literature reviews or systematic reviews." Am I understanding this correctly? Betty (talk) 03:52, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Am I understanding this correctly? Only in the context of information that falls under WP:MEDRS; academic papers are generally acceptable sources for other types of information, even if they are "primary" per MEDRS. Feel free to suggest changes to policy/guideline pages on their Talk pages. I don't think MEDRS is even mentioned on the pages about general sourcing, so it becomes one of those things you only learn exists by falling afoul of it. Schazjmd (talk) 14:26, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

> it becomes one of those things you only learn exists by falling afoul of it

So true! I'll try to suggest change on the policy page. Thank you again! Betty (talk) 01:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

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