FORwiki:No Original Research

No Original Research is a FORwiki policy that governs content development in articles from the portal Clarifications.

What FORwiki articles are not
The Foresight Wiki does not publish original thought on the fundamentals of Future Studies & Foresight or results of scientific research. The Foresight Wiki articles are not the place to publish personal opinions, arguments, or conclusions. There is a robust set of academic journals, with reliable peer-review mechanisms, which are hosting exactly this type of papers; a short list includes Futures, Foresight, International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futura, Journal of Futures Studies, etc..

The threshold for inclusion in the portal Clarifications of the Foresight Wiki is verifiability, not truth. The NOR policy requires that only assertions, theories, opinions, and arguments that have already been published in a dependable source may be used. Articles should not include unpublished arguments, speculation, ideas, or unpublished synthesis of published material. Transgressing this policy may lead to the deletion of the article.

What FORwiki articles are
FORwiki articles from the portal Clarifications should rely on dependable sources. The issue of avoiding original research is closely linked to the problem of citing dependable sources. This is why No Original Research and the General Guide for Developing FORwiki Content are interlinked, and should not be interpreted in isolation from one another.

Accepted research
The only type of research that is encouraged by the Foresight Wiki is "source-based research" which consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources. The content of a FORwiki article from the portal Clarifications should accurately reflect the original sources. It is not acceptable to use material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. But editors may summarize or rephrase a source without changing its meaning or implication – this is good editing. Best practice is to write articles by researching the most reliable sources on the topic and summarizing what they say in your own words.

Original images
Editors are encouraged to upload their own images, releasing them under the free licenses. Original images are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments. Image captions are also subject to the No Original Research policy. It is not acceptable for an editor to use photo manipulation to distort the facts illustrated by the original image. Manipulated images should be noted as such.