User talk:AlisterMcG

Welcome!
Hello, AlisterMcG, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:25, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing
Hi! I saw in your sandbox that you have this site listed as a possible source for a definition. I wanted to let you know that it's not usable as a source since it's a wiki that anyone can edit. As such, it wouldn't be seen as a reliable source and wouldn't be usable on Wikipedia. You also need to be careful about Psychology Today, as the site is not seen as the strongest possible source on Wikipedia per discussions like this. The site has a lot of blogs so at some times it's seen as a self-published source. It might be usable, however it's far from the strongest possible source. I really wouldn't recommend using it, to be honest.

Sites like this are also a bit questionable - the site's editorial oversight is unclear and while looking for more information (like the about page) some of the links came up as broken. This is a very bad sign when it comes to sourcing, as a reliable source should have clear editorial oversight and shouldn't really have any broken links, misspellings, and so on. The site also doesn't guarantee the licenses or qualifications of those who write for them, which is also a bad sign. A reliable source should at least verify that the people writing for them are who they say they are. IResearch actually has more issues with it, as there's zero information about who is writing the content, what type of editorial oversight is used, or really anything about the site. It's definitely not usable as a reliable source, nor would Healthcommunities.com

The Brain Pickings source is a little questionable as to its strength. The author (Maria Popova) is known for the blog and has received positive reviews and accolades for her site, however this doesn't mean that she would necessarily be the best source for topics that deal with health and sexuality. Keep in mind that blogs like this are primarily aimed at entertaining readers first and educating second. It would be seen as a pop culture source at best. It's not really the strongest possible source. The same issue goes for the blog post by Scientific American, believe it or not.

The Encyclopedia Britannica source is definitely a good one, since they are known for applying strong editorial oversight.

Most of these seem to be Google search results. While Google Search isn't a bad thing, it's not the best place to look for sourcing on a topic like this. I would really recommend utilizing your university's database, as it will typically produce the strongest possible sources. This seems to be a good place to start. Specific sources that could be usable are these:, , this, ,

This one may be usable - I'm not sure if it's a study or not, though. If it's a study, we will need a secondary source that backs up the claims. The same goes for this, this, this,.

I don't want you to feel badly about this - I just want to make sure that you're using the strongest possible sources, so your work isn't challenged and removed. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:37, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate you taking time to look through and critique my sources, this clears up a lot of the confusion I had about knowing where to look. I'll be sure to follow your advice while I look for stronger sources to back up the edits I plan to make. AlisterMcG (talk) 16:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Androgyny and sourcing
Welcome to Wikpedia, and your Wiki Ed course. Thanks for your recent contributions to Androgyny. Please keep Wikipedia's core policy of Verifiability in mind when adding content. In this edit, you added content to section Gender identity without including a source. All content in Wikipedia articles must be verifiable, and should include citations to reliable sources to provide such verifiability. See Help:Footnotes.

Also, when replying to comments on your talk page or anywhere else, as you did in the section above, please follow standard Talk page conventions about indentation and discussion threading. See WP:THREAD. Adding Shalor. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 10:03, 17 November 2019 (UTC)