Wikipedia:Three sources
Essay on editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You are probably here because one or more other Wikipedia editors are considering whether an article or draft that you created should be part of Wikipedia or not.
 | This is an essay on notability. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you were sent here from a link in a WP:AfD, WP:AfC, or similar discussion, please consider it a request to post two or three, but no more, of what you consider to be the best sources for the page under discussion. |
The problem with many references
You may have included a long list of references in the article, perhaps to enable the reader to verify what you've written. When evaluating the article for notability, it can take a long time for reviewers to follow each link to see whether they provide reliable, independent, secondary, in-depth coverage about the subject. Reviewers are volunteers, and slogging through dozens of references isn't much fun. However, they are generally willing to look at a few sources in detail if somebody else (i.e. you) does the footwork to figure out which ones are the best.
How to help the reviewers
If a draft you like is declined, don't assume that the reviewer wants it deleted just to inconvenience you. Instead, assume good faith and consider doing a bit of work to make the reviewer's task less tedious for them.
Familiarize yourself with the reliable source and significant coverage guidelines so that you understand what types of sources count as reliable with significant coverage of the article's topic. If people claim that an article doesn't meet some particular guideline (e.g. WP:NBIO, WP:NCORP, WP:GNG, etc.), read the relevant page and understand the specific criteria.
Look over the list of sources and find the three that best meet the reliable sources and significant coverage guidelines, and whatever other guidelines people are asking for the article to meet. Be honest with yourself about how good these three sources are. If they're not good sources, people will figure that out quickly and reject them.
In each case, ask yourself if the subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of it. To help keep track of which sources fit each of these criteria, you can create and fill out a source assessment table. If you haven't found three good references, look for more sources that meet all the criteria. If you are unsure as to how reliable a source is, you may ask about it at the reliable sources noticeboard.
Point out no more than three sources. Unless you're writing a biography of a living person, three good sources should be enough to convince anyone of a topic's notability. If you ask someone to look at more than three sources, they may be unwilling to look at any of them.
How to highlight the best three sources
If an article you like has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (AfD), you can respond at the discussion page that you think the article should be kept and list the three best sources in your comment, perhaps explaining why you think they are reliable, independent, secondary and in-depth.
If a draft you submitted has been declined, you can communicate with reviewers on the draft's talk page. Create a new heading == Three best sources == and list your best sources there. You can then re-submit the draft for review.
See also
- Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia articles backward, a better approach for you to adopt in future
- Wikipedia:Multiple sources, an essay which explains how many good sources you need to show notability
- User:RoySmith/Three best sources, the userspace counterpart of this essay