Sources and Their Credibility

This month I'll be getting started by doing a quick study and overview of informational sources.

The Importance of Sources
Sources are the most important part of the research process, and are the first thing you should consider when you look at information that is presented. If someone gives you a bit of information, the credibility of their source of that information is crucial. Not all sources have reliable information. To form ideas or opinions based on unreliable facts, or even outright wrong ones, is a bad idea. It not only leaves you believing something that probably isn't true, but it also gives you bad representation of yourself. This is why having good sources can mean everything, as when discussions arise you want to know that the facts your opinions are based on are well founded.

What Is A Source?
A source can be any place that you can obtain pieces of knowledge. Sources are usually known to be printed materials like books and magazines, but with the age of technology we have now, there are other digital media to be considered. There are plenty of factual blogs, journals, podcasts, and videos which can be very informative. A lot of these can even be highly reliable, but not always. The study I'll be doing should help me determine which sources are better for the kind of research I plan to do.

So let me take a minute here to address what I'll be looking for in the next couple weeks as I collect this information. I have a few guided questions which should help me in my search.

• What makes a good source? How do I know if my source is good?

• Where can I find reliable sources?

• What are some good general sources?

I'll be trying to answer these questions at the end of the month, possibly in an entirely different post, or maybe as a reference page at the top or side of the blog. For now, however, I'm going to use the rest of this post as a kind of workspace. I'll also collect any links or other information I plan to use.

[Note to Self:] Since my goal is to create a reliable list of good, quality sources, perhaps it would also benefit me to keep a record of sources I have discredited and why. It should also be helpful if I were to create a source evaluation page, much like a checklist, so I can review sources quickly.

[April 5th:] The first step is to simply collect places to gather information from. I can read through them to make sure I want to use them, but this first part won't count as "accessing" the source in the bibliography sense.

http://www.wikihow.com/Evaluate-the-Credibility-of-a-Source

• http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/findarticles/credibility.html
• http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill26.htm
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/8/

http://aics.education.wisc.edu/LessonPlans/FirstAmericansGreatLakesRegion/credcheck.pdf
http://www.andyspinks.com/researchhelp/web/CARS.pdf
http://pages.towson.edu/lwoznick/docs/general/evaluation_web.pdf
http://www.maricopa.edu/stratplan/envr%20scan/Determining%20Credible%20Sources.pdf

Wikipedia says it's not a credible source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use
About.com says it is: http://www.advertiseonabout.com/about-us/