Discussion questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Discussion questions - Essay Example I believe sources are reliable when the author is qualified to write it. Either he is educated in that field or has relevant experience. For example, Dr. Howard Gardner is qualified to write a book on Psychology because he is a psychologist by training and education. He also contributed big time to the field of Psychology. Consider also that the late Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon, but he wrote books on the psychology of a person’s self-image since it is as aspect touched in his work. Whenever he performs plastic surgery, either his client’s self-image improves or remains the same. Sources can be deemed credible if the information contained there make sense. Perhaps, the proper use of jargon and technical words indicates thorough knowledge of the subject. It is necessary for an expert to be precise so that terms are well stipulated and avoid misunderstanding. So, the researcher should be wary of the level of language used in a particular source. That would be indicative whether one is reliable or not. In general, blogs are unreliable sources. Any person can write anything in a blog without necessarily having the qualification to state his or her opinion about a topic in an entry. Exceptions to this rule of thumb would be experts who want to publish an opinion immediately with going to the process of peer review or editorial review. For this particular blog, this is fairly acceptable and reliable. The author has relevant experience in politics as a journalist. Although, I will try to find his opinion elsewhere in more reliable sources such as books or journal articles before using this. In a similar argument with blogs, Wiki sites should not be used as sources. Wiki sites, however, can be useful in the start of the research by priming the researcher into the basics of an issue. If there are sources footnoted, the researcher could look into them and cite those instead. They are probably more reliable than