User talk:Pthom025/Legalizing Marijuana in Canada

Student assignment
Hi! I saw on your userpage that you're currently taking a class at the University of Ottawa, so I'm getting the impression that this might be part of a class assignment. Because of this, I've opted not to speedy delete this and instead move it into your userspace so you don't lose your edit history. The reason that this article was tagged for deletion was because it did not expand on a pre-existing article we had on the topic, Legal history of cannabis in Canada. You may want to see if you can work on expanding that article instead of creating a new spinoff article, since the current article is pretty expansive.

I do have some notes for you, however, on the draft you made since it will be important for your future editing. I hope it doesn't come across as too harsh, since that's not my intention.


 * First and foremost, the article was written like a personal research paper. As a student paper, this wouldn't be bad - in fact, it's rather nicely written as a whole. However writing an encyclopedia article is different in several ways.
 * Tone: Articles must be written in a neutral format (WP:NPOV) and as such, cannot be written like it is partial on any one side of the issue. In other words, no personal opinions on whether or not pot should be legal in Canada. This means that you will need to explore both sides of the issue without sounding like you have a distinct opinion on the matter. This is can be seen as a WP:BIAS and while it's perfectly fine in personal research papers (although you will need to exercise caution), it isn't in an encyclopedia.
 * Original research: This can often result in issues with tone, but the two are separate matters. WP:OR is basically where you take information and draw your own conclusion via rational thinking. Like tone, this is fine (and even necessary!) in research papers, but not in an encyclopedia article. Even if it seems like it's a foregone conclusion, things like this can only be inserted into articles if it's explicitly stated in the source material and even then you'll need to be careful about how the information is presented. If it's a viewpoint, you need to present it as such. That's why you'll often see a lot of sentences like "Scholars have suggested that" or "Harvard professor John Smith", or things to that nature. It's very much a CYA thing because it's a way to insert information along these lines without performing your own research. There's an additional issue to this though, in that sometimes there will be subjects where there's no concrete 100% facts on the matter, just theories, research, and speculation. Some of this will be more respected than the others, but it's still something to be careful about and take into consideration in general, whether it's an encyclopedia article or a research paper.


 * Secondly, be careful of sources. Make sure that you vet them carefully. If the source doesn't explicitly back up what you say and/or only mentions the topic briefly, it likely isn't the best source to use. You also need to look at who is writing the source. Is it someone with a specific outlook or agenda? For example, you may want to avoid using the website of the Liberal Party of Canada since they have a vested interest in presenting material in a certain way. The best sources are usually ones written by people with more scholarly backgrounds, like academic journals and textbooks. This doesn't mean that they're the only place you should go, but it's usually something you should have as a basis when writing an encyclopedia article. Now, I'm aware that the LPoC was used to back up a quote, but that's not really something to use on Wikipedia because they're looking to be elected to office. The same goes for the conservatives. It also doesn't help that you quoted them and used that to back up your viewpoint.


 * Further expanding on this, you also need to be careful about how you select sources. Avoid only picking sources that support your viewpoint, as this can be seen as cherrypicking and isn't viewed as a very thorough way of exploring the issue. This is something that you'll need to have for any type of writing, whether it's an encyclopedia article or a scholarly paper. You need to make sure that you're exploring all of the points. For personal papers, you also need to make sure that you are aware of the research/coverage on both sides, in case you are questioned or challenged on your work. Nothing will discredit a paper faster than only picking specific sources.

I figure that this is a good place to start and stop with the discussion of the page. Now if your professor is doing this as part of a student assignment, I highly recommend that they check out the Education program and set up a course page. While it isn't a requirement, it's definitely helpful because it helps us know that a class is working on an assignment. People are more likely to be a little kinder when dealing with students and also, having an assignment page will make the class more visible, meaning that it's likely that the class could have some online volunteers.

Finally, I'd like to invite you to check out the WP:TEAHOUSE, a place for new editors to post and ask questions. You can always ask myself for help, but I'm not always on Wikipedia and there's always someone at the teahouse that can help! Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  12:01, 17 November 2015 (UTC)