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This is an essay on the neutral point of view policy.
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. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Scientific topics should be described using information from peer reviewed scientific sources with high impact factors; while significant minority views expressed in peer reviewed scientific articles can be included with a proper weight, such views cannot be included if these are only found in non-scientific sources |
Readers of scientific articles and articles mentioning scientific topics expect to find information that describes the topic in a way that is consistent with the existing scientific knowledge. To make sure this is indeed the case, editors are instructed not to engage in original research, but instead to write articles using information from peer reviewed scientific sources, preferring those with high impact factors. The impact factor (IF) of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.
It is allowed to use information from sources other than peer reviewed literature, if such information is known to be consistent with current accepted scientific knowledge. Examples include textbooks, mainstream popular science magazines with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, preprints written by scientists with a good publication record, and personal websites or blogs of such scientists. Such sources can be considered reliable sources for a scientific article, if editors agree that what is found in them is consistent with existing scientific knowledge.
This scientific point of view for science articles is consistent with the neutral point of view policy. For a scientific topic to be presented in a neutral way requires one to stick to the scientific point of view as described in this essay. When there are widely held views that are inconsistent with the scientific point of view, then that can merit inclusion in a section of the article or in another article that is specifically about the non-scientific aspects of the topic.
