User talk:Lizhuang97

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! -★- PlyrStar93. → Message me. 🖉← 05:25, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Lizhuang97, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian 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. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Reply
When it comes to evaluating any source, the question you need to ask yourself is "why do I consider this source reliable?"

The first two are at a .gov address, so that's a good sign. But it has no authors listed, it's undated, and the web design looks very dated. In fact, if you check the Internet Archive, the page looks identical as far back as 2002. Given that the Wayback Machine was created in October 2001, it's quite possible that the page is even older.

The third site, CluIn appears to be linked to the EPA, but you shouldn't trust a page just because it says it's linked to the EPA. You'd need to find an external source that validates the claim. The fourth site, cpeo.org, has additional problems - it looks like an activist site. So while their opinions might be notable, they probably shouldn't be your first choice.

But the real issue here isn't whether these sources meet the minimum status of reliable source - the real question is whether these are the best sources you can access. You should be looking for scholarly sources - for a topic as broad as bioremediation you should probably look for a recent book from an academic press, or a review article published in the peer-reviewed literature. If you aren't sure how to access these through your library, you should talk to your librarian. Librarians are happy to help with research projects - it's an important part of their job. And the better the sources you can access, the better the content you'll be able to create. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:10, 25 September 2017 (UTC)