User:XOR'easter/So, you've decided to write about physics and/or mathematics on Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, you've decided to write about physics and/or mathematics on Wikipedia!
This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Maybe you're a student in one of those fields, or even a professor. Or maybe you came to Wikipedia for other reasons, have experience with how the project works, and suddenly find yourself dealing with a science topic in the news or a physicist who's shown up to edit. The peculiarities of Wikipedia and those of the academic world can intersect in strange and frustrating ways, causing even people of good will to work at cross-purposes.
Wikipedia works by summarizing, as fairly as possible, the content of reliable sources. In subject areas that require considerable education to master, identifying which sources might be reliable can be a difficult task, and indeed, learning to do so can be a significant part of that education. On the flipside, there are things about writing on Wikipedia that aren't necessarily obvious to new arrivals, no matter how much subject-area expertise they have. This essay provides some pragmatic advice for identifying reliable sources about physics and mathematics, deciding how much emphasis to give a topic, and organizing the coverage of those subjects in a clarifying way.