Talk:Trudy Virginia Noller Murphy

too many primary references

I would appreciate advice on addressing concern "This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources. (August 2023)". The references used are mainly to articles in peer-reviewed academic journals that document the various statements. These are reliable sources with clear website links to academic journals. As far as I know these are not well covered in secondary references. Thank you. Haemophilus2 (talk) 17:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Haemophilus2 Wikipedia articles should rely on secondary sources wherever possible. If primary sources are used, editors should never interpret their content - see WP:NOR. This article appears to reply on Murphy's own articles as references, which raises the question of whether the content in the article is your or another editor's interpretation of them, which is considered original research and not allowed. It may be that the article needs to be cut down significantly for this reason, which is fine - this is meant to be an encyclopedic biography of a person's whole life, and not the place to detail all their ideas if others elsewhere have not already commented on them (i.e. written about them in secondary sources which can be referenced here). Thanks Melcous (talk) 01:41, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I appreciate your answer. I think I now have a better idea of the basis for preferring secondary references for a wikipedia biography. As an academic, it is counterintuitive. When one makes a statement in a review, the preference always is to cite the original supporting (primary) documentation. Indeed it is inappropriate to cite a secondary review. I will go back to the Murphy biography and search for secondary sources that provide the documentation and substitute them whenever possible. Haemophilus2 (talk) 01:50, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]