Credible Sources in the Context of Online

¶ … Credible Sources

In the context of online research and analysis, it is important to determine the credibility of sources whether they are scholarly or not. This is especially important when research is compiled and synthesized into new studies or academic, scholarly, or philosophic proposals or insights. It is important to recognize the validity of sources, especially when so many online sources and sites claim to be able to provide insight, and sometimes complete assignments, into ongoing discussions among students and professors at an undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral level.

One of the sites most frequently cited for a lack of credibility is Wikipedia.org. While Wikipedia may attract students due to its ease of use and the information contained on the site, it is often not considered a credible source due to its aggregate nature and because many of its entries are written, edited, and submitted by its users. While many educators do not consider Wikipedia itself a credible source, scholarly studies conducted provide insight into the site's credibility. In "An empirical examination of Wikipedia's credibility" by Thomas Chesney (2006), a lecturer on Information Systems at the Nottingham University Business School published on the peer-reviewed web journal First Monday, Chesney (2006) examines the site's credibility through a randomized study of 258 research staff that was asked to gauge the credibility, or perceived credibility, of Wikipedia's articles. Chesney (2006) found, "No difference was found between the two group in terms of their perceived credibility of Wikipedia or of the articles' authors, but a difference was found in the credibility of the articles -- the experts found Wikipedia's articles to be more credible than the non-experts. This suggests that the accuracy of Wikipedia is high."

On the other hand, Lisa Spiro (2008) provides equally compelling insight into Wikipedia's credibility from a non-academic perspective. Spiro is the "director of NITLE Labs, Program Manager of Anvil Academic, Communications Officer for the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), and founder of the DiRT wiki (now Bamboo DiRT)" (Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, n.d.). In "Is Wikipedia Becoming a Respectable Academic Source?," Spiro (2008) investigates Wikipedia's credibility from an independent consultant and researcher perspective, which although is not exactly scholarly, is still credible and informative.

While Wikipedia serves as a digital encyclopedia where information can be sourced from, other sites such as *****, cheathouse.com (writework.com), cramster.com, *****, midterm.us, answerbag.com, and brainmass.com offer prewritten term papers that lack credibility and scholarship. However, many of these sites provide a disclaimer stating that the "intended purpose of our example term papers is that they be used as study aids or as models of what a term paper should look like," as is claimed on *****'s landing page (*****, n.d.). Additionally, these sites lack credibility because the information transmitted on the site often goes unchecked and anyone is free to participate in discussions; this is especially true of answerbag.com as questions are not limited to scholarly or academic discussion, but cover all topics and often do not require citations be provided with answers. What is more, purchasing or sourcing information from these types of websites is a disservice to students who forego the learning process and instead regurgitate, if not plagiarize, previously written and published work. Additionally, these sites cannot be cited or referenced directly because many of the papers published therein are derivative works, or they are boilerplate essays licensed to provide a guide and not intended for academic/scholarly submission.