On 11 July 2014 06:02, Jon Beasley-Murray <jon.beasley-murray(a)ubc.ca> wrote:
I'm not sure where you're looking, but I'm
thinking of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PRIMARY, which is indeed clear
enough:
"All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary
sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to an
original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."
I was reading from the next para, which qualifies what you have copied it
here. If you had taken a couple more minutes to reply ...
Now this (along perhaps with [[WP:OR]] can indeed be a change from how
many academics and researchers see their role. But then that's because
they're forgetting that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, rather than (say) an
academic journal.
"Interpretive" is the crux here. Since you are more concerned to tell
Jennifer what to do, I think it should be explained that the reason not to
use "primary" sources is that, for example, old historical documents are
treacherous from the point of view of interpretation.
In common parlance, "spin" is what is to be excluded. We are now talking
about subsections of [[Wikipedia:No original research]]; which does not
exclude "research" done properly, just research with added spin. I would
say it is fairly much off-topic for this thread, actually.
Charles