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A reliable source is one that presents a well-reasoned theory or argument supported by strong evidence. Reliable sources include scholarly, peer-reviewed articles or books written by researchers for students and researchers, which can be found in academic databases and search engines like JSTOR and Google Scholar.
Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics (see § Scholarship, above). Press releases from organizations or journals are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release.
However, if an author is an established expert with a previous record of third-party publications on a topic, their self-published work may be considered reliable for that particular topic. Whether a source is usable also depends on context. Sources that are reliable for some material are not reliable for other material.
There are no quaternary sources: Either the source is primary, or it describes, comments on, or analyzes primary sources (in which case, it is secondary), or it relies heavily or entirely on secondary or tertiary sources (in which case, it is tertiary). The first published source for any given fact is always considered a primary source.
This page in a nutshell: Cite reviews, don't write them. Appropriate sources for discussing the natural sciences include comprehensive reviews in independent, reliable published sources, such as recent peer reviewed articles in reputable scientific journals, statements and reports from reputable expert bodies, widely recognized standard textbooks written by experts in a field, or standard ...
Does the source indeed support the material? The author. Who is the author? Does the author have a Wikipedia article? What are the author's academic credentials and professional experience? What else has the author published? Is the author, or this work, cited in other reliable sources? In academic works? How does the author make a living?
A third-party source from one article may be treated as an auxiliary source in another, because the focus has changed. [6] Generally, any source that does not qualify as a reliable third-party source is grouped in this category. The use of these raw, first-hand, or out-of-date sources lends itself to inaccurate reporting, undue weight, and ...
Wikipedia is not a reliable source for academic writing or research. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from first-year students to distinguished professors, as an easily accessible tertiary source for information about anything and everything and as a quick "ready reference", to get a sense of a concept or idea.