User talk:Mirandalgreen

Welcome!
Hello, Mirandalgreen, 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) 20:36, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Miranda! I'm Erin and I'm in your writing class. I am also a science and nature enthusiast- but what true Oregonian isn't? :) what's your favorite place to get outside in the area? Erinebusby (talk) 02:40, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Miranda, Im Sarah and Im in your class, WR 121 too! I am looking forward to working with you/learning along with you as we figure out Wikipedia and create awesome articles! Sarahkimes (talk) 18:16, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Medical articles
Hi - I had some notes for you on the contributions to childhood leukemia!

The first is that popular press sources such as newspapers, magazines, and some websites should be avoided as sources when it comes to medical topics. Wikipedia's guidelines for sourcing is more strict when it comes to medical articles, which you can read over at WP:MEDRS. (We have a training on this here that I'd like you to take.) The MEDRS article has a section about popular press here. The general gist is that popular press sources tend to eschew details in favor of putting out a news article that will draw in readers. This means that the source may not only write something misleading, but the information can so generalized and tweaked for publication that the source is wrong. An example of this would be a research study stating that something may be a potential cure for cancer, but that there are many barriers to using this something such as cost and availability, as well as that the tests they conducted aren't conclusive. A popular press source would ignore the barriers for the most part and instead write a story that proclaims that the scientists have discovered a cure. They may put a question mark at the end, but they're still generalizing the study in such broad terms that the chances that something is wrong or misleading is about 100%. Some of them also tend to kind of copy popular news topics, so you can also run into cases where an outlet - even really well respected ones - will summarize what has been stated in other popular press outlets, sometimes as a way to get around deliberately fudging information as they can then say that they're only reporting what other popular press sources have stated. Even if the outlet tries to do due diligence with verifying the claims and study, the person writing the article is a journalist who may not have any training in medicine or science.

The other note is to just make sure that everything is sourced and that you are writing in as neutral and encyclopedic a style as possible. The medical sources note was the main one I wanted to mention. I hope this helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:32, 10 August 2018 (UTC)