This essay describes methods for populating a well-sourced list of people who are known to have had a given medical condition. The example used here is polio and the List of polio survivors. This condition has several names: "polio", "poliomyelitis" and "infantile paraysis". You may need to repeat a search with alternative names.
When searching with Google, a lot of hits can be Wikipedia mirrors, which we obviously don't want. If you use Firefox and CustomizeGoogle then you can add a list of mirrors from meta:Mirror filter to remove them from the results.
Both reliable and unreliable sources have their uses.
Unreliable sources edit
There are many unreliable sources that can be used profitably. The main purpose is to quickly build up a list of potential candidates. None of them should be used as final sources in the article.
Wikipedia edit
There are two ways to locate articles related to polio. The first is to use the Special:Whatlinkshere/Poliomyelitis page. Go through each of the articles that look like someone's name. Check they had the condition, rather than researched it or cured people. Where a redirect has more than 500 of its own links, its list can be abbreviated. Therefore it can be beneficial to open the redirect (e.g. Special:Whatlinkshere/Polio) to ensure you see the full list.
The second method is to use Google on Wikipedia: polio site:en.wikipedia.org.
Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. You can't rely on the biographical article for your information about the person and their illness (though it will give you ideas on what to look for). Hopefully, there will be some references and external links that are reliable.
Personal websites edit
Personal websites range from obviously amateur to apparently professional. The main problem with them is lack of editorial control - the author can directly publish whatever they like without any checks. An example of a useful personal website is Famous Polio People. Two common problems with such websites are:
- Copyright infringement. They may contain whole articles from magazines, newspapers or chapters from books. Wikipedia can't link to such pages.
- Reusing Wikipedia. It is such a great source of free text that many sites just copy it! If you start seeing familiar phrases from the Wikipedia article, beware. Obviously, there is no point in using Wikipedia's own text as a source.
Charities edit
Medical charities love to list famous names. Often their enthusiasm makes them too willing to accept a name where they should really be more skeptical or thorough in checking the facts. This is particularly true of retrospective diagnoses where historical figures are given a disease they didn't know they had. If these lists were reliable, it would make sourcing our list so much easier. They aren't.
User contributed databases edit
There are many sites where readers can contribute information, just like Wikipedia.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has lots of biographical pages on people related to film and television. The overview page for a person on IMDb often gives the cause of death. There may also be a mini Bio page. You can search these pages with Google: polio site:www.imdb.com/name.
The Notable Names Database (NNDB) is similar to IMDb, but wider in scope. Medical conditions are collated under a "Risk Factors" topic heading.
Find A Grave contain biographical details of people who are dead, obviously.
AmIAnnoying.com is another site with biographical information, collected with the purpose of judging people. It has collections, such as people with a given medical condition. Its views on whether an illness makes someone annoying (or not) may cause offsense.
Reliable sources edit
Finding sources of reliable information about a person and polio can most easily be done online. Search for both names together: polio alan alda. If the surname is at all uncommon, then it can be used alone, to avoid problems where the forename is variable or absent. Quotes can help narrow a search: polio "alan alda" but this sometimes limits it too much.
Books edit
The best sources are biographies dedicated to the person. A whole book is great, but sometimes a chapter is enough. Two big sites for searching books are
- Google Book Search. You will get "limited preview", where some pages of the book are viewable, and "snippet view" where almost nothing is viewable. With the latter, beware of relying on the snippet text, especially if the subject of the sentence is not explicitly the person you are searching for. It may be the text is describing polio in a parent or child. If you are able to view the whole page, note down the page number(s). When you are viewing one page, you can also "search in this book" for any other references to polio, or that person. Click on "About this book" and:
- use the information to populate a {{cite book}} template along with the page number(s) you noted.
- or copy and paste the ISBN into Diberri's template filler, you will still need to manually enter the page number.
- A9.com can search books on Amazon. To fully benefit, you need to have an Amazon.com account.
Newspapers edit
Newspapers are another excellent source, with obituaries containing the most bibliographic material. Many papers such as The Guardian are free to view online. If you want to limit searches to just obituaries, you can use either polio site:www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries or (less specific) include the word: polio obituary site:www.guardian.co.uk
News sites edit
Online news sites can be good, though tend to be less studious than a broadsheet newspaper. Some are dedicated to certain news such as sports.
Fan sites edit
Websites dedicated to a person can contain loads of information. Some are authorised and professional and some are just personal shrines. Watch out for text taken from Wikipedia.