User talk:AshleyErinCOML

Welcome!
Hello, AshleyErinCOML, 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) 14:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Studies as sources
Hi! I was looking at your sandbox and I noticed that you have some sources on your page. Upon reviewing them, it looks like some of them are studies. Be careful of studies, as they should generally be avoided unless they're accompanied with a secondary source that reviews the study or comments upon the specific claim that is being stated. The reason for this is that studies are primary sources for any of the claims and research conducted by their authors. The publishers don't provide any commentary or in-depth verification, as they only check to ensure that the study doesn't have any glaring errors that would invalidate it immediately. Study findings also tend to be only true for the specific people or subjects that were studied.

For example, a person from California may respond differently to a study than someone in Florida (or California and China) - and even within the study things like income, education, culture, and other aspects may result in different perspectives. As such, it's definitely important to find a secondary source, as they can provide this context, verification, and commentary. Aside from that, there's also the issue of why a specific study should be highlighted over another. For example, someone could ask why one study was chosen as opposed to something that studied a similar topic or had different results.

I hope that this helps you out. I also agree with your assessment of the sourcing on the postgraduate research page - those sources are definitely problematic. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2019 (UTC)