Training modules/dashboard/slides/10311-verifiability
Verifiability
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Verifiability: “Says who?”
Behind every great Wikipedia article is a collection of great sources. Finding good sources is one of the first things you should do.
That’s because content on Wikipedia must be verifiable. People reading and editing the encyclopedia can check its information, see that it is up to date and comes from a reliable source.
You wouldn’t trust everything you read on the internet, and Wikipedia is no different. But at the end of every page, you can see where the facts stated in the body of the article came from: its source. That helps anyone double check facts to make sure that they’re true. When you add content to Wikipedia, you’ll want to give the same opportunity to others.
So, make sure you only share facts that you draw from reliable sources. Reliable sources include:
- Textbooks
- Literature reviews
- Books or publications written by experts in the field, and published by reliable publishers.
Do not use:
- Blog posts
- Press materials intended to show something in a certain light
In some cases, such as articles that involve medical editing, newspapers and pop-press articles aren’t appropriate, either. If that applies to you, we’ll explore more about this later, in our module on editing medical topics.