Wikipedia:Tiers of reliability

Tier 1: most reliable

Main page: WP:SCHOLARSHIP

Further information: Academic publishing and Rankings of academic publishers

Peer-reviewed publications

Further information: List of academic databases and search engines and Lists of academic journals

• Peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, e.g. Science [1] or Nature [2]
• Literature reviews, systematic reviews, and other review articles
• Peer-reviewed conference papers
• Examples:
  • Malawey, Victoria (2014). "'Find out what it means to me': Aretha Franklin's gendered re-authoring of Otis Redding's 'Respect'". Popular Music. 33 (2): 185–207. doi:10.1017/S0261143014000270. S2CID 161360928.
  • Lordi, Emily J. (2016). "Souls intact: The soul performances of Audre Lorde, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone". Women & Performance. 26 (1): 55–71. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2016.1183981. S2CID 194498055.

Academic books

Further information: List of university presses

• Books published by university presses, e.g. Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press
• Specialist encyclopedias, e.g. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia
• Examples:
  • David W. Stowe (2011). No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807878002.
  • Linda Solomon (2019). The Queen Next Door: Aretha Franklin, An Intimate Portrait. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814347294

Tier 2: more reliable

Non-peer-reviewed academic publications

• Non-peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, e.g. Science [3] or Nature [4]
• Book reviews in academic journals
• Non-peer-reviewed conference papers
• Example: Fink, Robert; Weisbard, Eric; Dibbell, Carola; Christgau, Georgia; Tate, Greg; Denise, Dj Lynnée (2019). "Remembering Aretha Franklin". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 31 (1): 3–14. doi:10.1525/jpms.2019.311002. S2CID 150034745.

Mass-market books

Further information: List of English-language book publishing companies

• "Big Five (publishers): Hachette, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster
• Example: Craig Werner (2007). Higher Ground Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307420879.

Highly-reputable international journalism

Main page: WP:NEWSORG

• BBC
• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Washington Post
• Los Angeles Times
• The Economist
• Foreign Affairs
• International wire services: Associated Press (AP), Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
• Example: "Obituary: Aretha Franklin" (August 16, 2018). BBC News.

Tier 3: reliable

Tertiary sources

Further information: Identifying and using tertiary sources (WP:TERTIARYUSE), Tertiary-source fallacy (WP:TSF), and Dictionaries as sources (WP:DICTS)

• General reference works, e.g. Encyclopædia Britannica, Oxford English Dictionary
• Example: "Aretha Franklin" (March 21, 2021). Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Other generally reliable news sources

Further information: WP:Reliable sources/Perennial sources and Otto Middleton (or why newspapers are dubious sources) (WP:OTTO)

• National and international journalism that is less than top-rated
• Regional and local news ("Channel 5 news", local newspapers)
• Trade publications
• Any source listed as green at WP:RSP would be at least in this tier
• Example: Brian McCollum (August 16, 2018). "Aretha Franklin dies at 76: Detroit star transformed American music". Detroit Free Press.

Expert self-published

• Snow Lion Publications [5]
• Doctoral theses
• Example: Charles Kronengold, interviewed by Robin Wander (August 29, 2018). "Stanford musicologist reflects on 'multimusical' Aretha Franklin". Stanford University.

Tier 4: limited use

Non-expert self-published

Further information: Vanity and predatory publishing (WP:VANPRED) and WP:ABOUTSELF

• Official websites, brochures and other promotional materials
• Opinion/editorial (see WP:RSOPINION)
• vanity press
• predatory publishing
• churnalism
• government propaganda
• Undergraduate and graduate theses
• Examples:
  • Aretha Franklin Official Website
  • Michael Eric Dyson (August 16, 2018). "The Church of Aretha Franklin: How the Queen of Soul preached to us all" (op-ed). The New York Times.
  • Pamela J. Greene (December 1995). "Aretha Franklin: The Emergence of Soul and Black Women's Consciousness in the Late 1960s and 1970s"] (PhD dissertation). Graduate College, Bowling Green State University.

Questionable sources

Further information: WP:Reliable sources/Perennial sources

• Sources listed as yellow at WP:RSP
• Example: Samatha Schnurr (August 16, 2018). "Aretha Franklin, "Queen of Soul," Dead at 76". E! News.

Primary sources

Further information: Identifying and using primary sources (WP:USEPRIMARY)

See also

Policies

• Verifiability (WP:V)
• No original research (WP:NOR)

Guidelines

• Reliable sources (WP:RS)
• Citing sources (WP:CITE)

Explanatory supplements

• Independent sources (WP:INDY)

General essays

• Reliable sources checklist (WP:RSVETTING)
• Cherrypicking (WP:CHERRYPICK)
• Potentially unreliable sources (WP:PUS)
• Reliable source examples (WP:RSE)

Topic-specific essays

• Identifying reliable sources (history) (WP:HISTRS)
• Identifying reliable sources (law) (WP:RSLAW)
• Identifying reliable sources (science) (WP:SCIRS)
• Identifying reliable sources (medicine) (WP:MEDRS)
• Identifying and using style guides (WP:STYLEGUIDES)
• Using maps and similar sources in Wikipedia articles (WP:MAPCITE)

Other

• Reliable sources/Noticeboard (WP:RSN)
• Reliable sources/Perennial sources (WP:RSP)
• Common knowledge (WP:CK)
• How to mine a source (WP:MINE)