Wikipedia:No original research: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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Summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis — it is good editing. Best practice is to write Wikipedia articles by taking material from different reliable sources on the topic and putting those claims on the page in your own words, with each claim attributable to a source that explicitly makes that claim.

==Do not present facts in a way that advances a position==

Do not put together facts in an order not supported by any source to advance a position.

Sometime it seems neutral to simply state the facts and let the readers draw his/her own conclusions. However, you should not try to arrange these facts in a way that implies more than what is written.

For instance, consider the following sentence:

<blockquote>The UN stated objective is "to maintain international peace and security", however, since its creation, there have been 160 wars throughout the world.</blockquote>

Although no conclusion is drawn, and although both facts are true, the way the sentence is written implies that the UN failed at maintaining world peace. The issue here is that no reliable source combines these two facts in the way it is done here, which is why it is original research.

In fact, it would be possible to imply the opposite conclusion using the same facts. It shows that when no source is provided facts can be manipulated whichever way one wants:

<blockquote>The UN stated objective is "to maintain international peace and security". Since its creation, there have been only 160 wars throughout the world, and no world war.</blockquote>

== Citing oneself ==