Wikipedia:WikiProject Consumer Reports/citation

This page discusses some issues in citing health alerts.

Many reputable organizations publish health alerts which explain in clear terms various health issues as part of public health education campaigns. These alerts often present some fact with a citation, and are themselves worth citing because of the way they state the information and because they come with an organizational backing which fulfills the Wikipedia community's requests for reliable sources.

The problem with health alerts is that they frequently are difficult to cite. This page discusses the example case of a particular health campaign.

Issues
Health alerts frequently have the following characteristics:
 * good
 * 1) Present good information
 * 2) Have the backing of a respected, authoritative organization
 * bad
 * 1) title of publication is often ambiguous
 * 2) author's identity is ambiguous
 * 3) publisher's identity is ambiguous
 * 4) lacking date or version control
 * 5) no guarantee of permanence in content
 * 6) no guarantee that its URL will not rot

The good characteristics make people want to share the information; the bad characteristics make it difficult to create a citation for the information.

Examples
Here is an example citation template which would need fields completed.

CW, list of 5
Consider this list of 5 recommendations from the CW campaign.

Here is an example of a proper citation for this.

Completing the template in that way generates this citation:

CW, information sheet
Consider this information sheet from the CW campaign.

Here is my best guess of how to properly cite, for example, the AFP's "list of 5" document:

Completing the template in that way generates this citation:

HVC
Consider this information sheet from the HVC campaign.

Here is my best guess of how to properly cite, for example, the HVC's document:

Completing the template in that way generates this citation:

Questions about these examples
Here are some questions about citing this document.


 * 1) Who is the author?
 * 2) Who is the publisher?
 * 3) What is the name of the work?
 * 4) What is the title of the media being cited?
 * 5) Is there a page number?
 * 6) Is there a date associated with it?
 * 7) Notice that the url has a date in it. This means that if the document is ever updated then this link may disappear. Is this the best url to use?
 * 8) In the case of CW articles, what should one think about all documents in this series having the same title? Do they all have the same title?

Resolution
After talking with people at Consumer Reports it was determined that the organization was unfamiliar with this kind of use of its work. The below are models demonstrating the best practices.