User talk:Assoc Prof Graham

Original research
I notice that earlier in the year you added a lot of content to articles that, at best, constituted original research. Please understand that original research is not permitted on Wikipedia for several reasons.

I hope none of this comes across as rude, just that original research does not belong on Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  08:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) First is that it's usually unverified with reliable sources that back up the specific claims. In one case with Kolobos you added content and used the video releases of several films and this article (although you did not include where the article had been posted). The problem with this is that none of those actually back up the claims you made in the article. They exist, but until the director (or someone else involved in the making of the film) comes out and explicitly makes this comparison or these comparisons are made by someone in a reliable source (ie, a news articles, journal article, etc), these claims should not be in the article. You should not say that someone was an influence on someone because there's always the chance that they weren't- I know that there are more than a few creative professionals (books, film, art) who have vociferously denied that specific people were an inspiration for their work. (Which could bring up legal concerns if they wanted to say that we were perpetuating something that wasn't true.) Dante Tomaselli is one such person who has had to repeatedly deny claims that he saw Argento and Fulci as inspirations. Now even if the person has not made a statement that they were inspired by someone/something, it is possible to include comparisons in certain circumstances, but this can only be done if we are referring to a comparison made by someone in a reliable source and even then we have to specifically state that this comparison was made by someone in a scholarly/reliable source.
 * 2) Secondly, you need to be careful of tone. This is another cause for concern with original research because in many instances it's a reflection of the writer's personal opinions. Avoid words that come across as WP:PEACOCK terms since they can come across as promotional. This is a fairly big problem with many newer editors, especially if they're used to writing in other outlets (blogs, newspapers, journals, personal papers, etc). This is because you don't have to worry as much about voicing an opinion in something that is personally attributed to yourself as you would an encyclopedia article that is supposed to be neutrally written. It's also because in many instances the personally attributed articles are written to entertain and as such will contain tone (humor, sarcasm, admiration, etc) that you would not find appropriate in say, Encyclopedia Britannica. It's also problematic because an article containing heavy elements of any given non-neutral tone would also come across as Wikipedia endorsing that point of view, which is problematic since an encyclopedia should not show bias (whether negative or positive) towards any specific point of view.
 * 3) Thirdly, original research can often delve into material that isn't entirely pertinent to the article/topic in order to prove its point. You did this with a few articles but you lacked coverage to really back up these points. Even if the idea sounds like it would make a lot of sense and would be something everyone should know, without that coverage it will still come across as original research. All content in an article should be sourced with a reliable source per WP:RS. You cannot take something that mentions something else (or does not mention the topic) and say that it backs up your point. As said above, sources have to explicitly make the claim that you're trying to write about and it has to be directly said about the film/person/topic in question.