User talk:Jenniferlaforce1

Welcome!
Hello, Jenniferlaforce1, 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) 18:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Studies as sources, critique
Hi! I noticed that some of your prospective sources were studies. Studies 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 in one area may respond differently than one in an area located on the other side of the country. Socioeconomic factors (be they for the person or a family member) also play a large role, among other things that can impact a response. 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 also want to caution you about the critique section. When it comes to Wikipedia we can only summarize what has been explicitly stated in source materials. We cannot create our own original research based on the sources. This means that if there's no critique out there or if the material is too vague to really be considered a critique, then there shouldn't be a critique section.

I hope that this all helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:49, 24 June 2019 (UTC)