User talk:J8079s/sandbox
The question you ask here and raise again on other pages What's the rule on interpreting primary sources? Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources
"Secondary" is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to mean "good" or "reliable" or "usable". Secondary does not mean that the source is independent, authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, or published by a reputable publisher. Secondary sources can be unreliable, biased, self-serving and self-published.
According to our content guideline on identifying reliable sources, a reliable source has the following characteristics:
- It has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
- It is published by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s).
- It is "appropriate for the material in question", i.e., the source is directly about the subject, rather than mentioning something unrelated in passing.
- It is a third-party or independent source, with no significant financial or other conflict of interest.
- It has a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.
A primary source can have all of these qualities, and a secondary source may have none of them. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, not merely mindless, knee-jerk reactions to classification of a source as "primary" or "secondary".
"Primary" does not mean "bad"
"Primary" is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to mean "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable". While some primary sources are not fully independent, they can be authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control and published by a reputable publisher.
Primary sources can be reliable, and they can be used. Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source, such as when you are supporting a direct quotation. In such cases, the original document is the best source because the original document will be free of any errors or misquotations introduced by subsequent sources.
However, there are limitations in what primary sources can be used for.