On Reliable Sources

Citation is key In a research paper, your own opinion doesn’t matter Everything you say must come from cited evidence Evidence: information or ideas that you compile into a logical, coherent argument. Gathered from sources.

What is a source? A primary source is a text that you study, make an argument about, interpret A song, a news article, a tv show, etc A secondary source is a text that studies a primary source. You use secondary sources to support, shape, and strengthen your own argument about primary sources.

Question everything No source is truly objective. Every kind of source—internet or otherwise—has political, social, and ideological valences that you should consider. This doesn’t mean that you should choose just any source; it means that you need to determine which sources are best.

Reliable and Rigorous Know how to tell if sites are reliable, and if they are rigorous Reliable: You can trust the information you find in this source Rigorous: Others will trust the information you base on your findings from this source

Part 1: The interwebs are your springboard

I’m sorry, Dave. I can’t let you do that. Search engines are programs that run on algorithms. They aren’t sentient, and they certainly aren’t magic. If you don’t know what you want, they don’t know what you want. You have to figure out exactly what to look for in order to find exactly what you want.

Irrational Hatred of Wikis You may have heard that you can never use Wikipedia This may at one time have been true, but Wikipedia’s self-policing community has made Wikipedia increasingly reliable That is, you can trust what you read on there—to a point Though Wikipedia is now far more reliable (you can trust what you find on it), it is not rigorous (others will not trust arguments you derive from it)

Wiki Springboard So, what do you use it for? Reminding you of dates, names, connections that you might not remember Telling you events, people, connections that you didn’t know about, and can now research more thoroughly Listing sources at the bottom that you can examine or use as springboards in themselves

Bloggery Remember that anyone can have a blog, and can say anything they want on it. This means that any nutter with a conspiracy theory can have a blog But it also means that any well-respected scholars have blogs You will need to determine how reliable a blog is based on who writes it (qualifications, citations they provide, etc.). You will need to determine how rigorous a blog is based on who else cites it Blogs can also work as springboards: link to their citations, check for works cited

News Sites From Fox to the BBC, every news site is going to have an angle Some news sources will be more reliable than others—and it may depend on the subject in question For news about the US, consider going to non-US news sources (BBC, Al Jazeera) For political news especially, try to look at a wide variety of sources with various political agendas

Organizational sites Some organizations have collected information for you to access As with all sites, consider the reliability and rigor of each site Look at the source that the site provides for you. Some, like VictorianWeb, provide you with primary sources or scholarly secondary sources. Use them with impunity!

General rules You can check the URL’s suffix as a general rule for reliability: If the site ends in.edu, it is most likely an educational institution If the site ends in.gov, it is most likely a reliable government website If the site ends in.org, it is usually a non-profit organization Each of these will have its own biases and agendas that you should determine and consider

General rules In academia, a peer-reviewed journal or monograph always, always, always beats an internet source. That’s really where you want to end up. But remember

The interwebs are your springboard