Wikipedia:Independent sources
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
Independent sourcing is an expansion of points in Wikipedia:Verifiability and gives the opinion of some editors on why independent sourcing is required on Wikipedia. Its aim is to note that:
Any article on a topic is required to cite a reliable source independent of the topic itself, to warrant that an article on the topic can be written from a neutral point of view and not contain original research.
[edit] Summary
An independent source is a source which describes a topic from a disinterested perspective. For example, in the case of a website, an independent source would be newspaper coverage of the site rather than the site itself; for a recording artist, an independent source would be a review of the artist rather than album sleeve notes or a press release. This is not to disregard the role such primary source material can play in writing an article, but serves to ensure an article can be written from a balanced viewpoint. It also ensures articles can catalogue a topic's worth, its role and achievements within society, rather than offering a directory listing. The idea is that articles which don't reference outside sources be placed in clean-up via an independent sources template, and if there ultimately prove to be no independent sources, the article may be listed for deletion.
[edit] Explanation
Wikipedia strives to be of the highest standard possible, and to avoid writing on topics from a biased viewpoint. Wikipedia:Verifiability was created as an expansion of the neutral point of view policy, to allow information to be checked for any form of bias. It has been noticed, however, that some articles are sourcing their content solely from the topic itself, which creates a level of bias within an article. Where this primary source is the only source available on the topic, this bias is impossible to correct. Such articles tend to be vanity, although it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate this within certain topic areas.
If Wikipedia is, as defined by the three key content policies, an encyclopaedia which summarises viewpoints rather than a repository for viewpoints, to achieve this goal, articles must demonstrate that the topic they are covering has been mentioned in reliable sources independent of the topic itself. These sources should be independent of both the topic and of Wikipedia, and should be of the standard described in Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Articles should not be built using only the subject itself as sole source. This requirement for independent sources is so as to determine that the topic can be written about without bias; otherwise the article is likely to fall foul of our vanity guidelines.
