Credible Sources

Nowadays, the internet has tried to sell us just about everything it says. After studying this week's topic, credible sources, I have come to obtain the knowledge of discerning whether or not a source is credible. There are three major ways of differentiating the realness to the falseness of a cite (however, you can also break it down to five currency, relevance, accuracy, authority, and purpose). First, you want to make sure that the information isn't biased. For example, if you have a website that is trying to sell you a topic and all they mention is how good the topic is, they are imparting partial and biased information to its readers. The danger of using a cite that isn't credible is that, you may be getting "blinded information" or information that isn't true and is narrow minded. When authors write in a biased form, they are writing based on opinions rather than on facts. Another step, should be that web users check the author's biography. By seeing how experienced the author of the article or website is on the subject, it can give you a glimpse into how accurate the information he/she wrote about is. An author who is inexperienced and makes a lot of typing and grammatical errors, may have lead you to a shaky and unreliable source. For instance, if you come a cross an author who graduated from a college, has held professional jobs in the field you are researching, and seems to know what they are talking about, then I would establish that cite as credible and reliable. Lastly, in discerning the realness of a source you want to see how recent the cite has been updated. If the source was updated 10 years ago it may not have such valid information on it, as a source that has been updated recently that day. Newly found information is changing at rapid paces everyday. Therefore, if you are going to do an assignment on a certain subject for an important class of yours, you are going to want to verify that all your information is up to date. In other words, having a source that is updated frequently means that the information derived from it will be more likely in being reliable. After all, everybody want's the best grade on their assignments so in order to receive the best grades, they need to have the best quality of information.
Wikipedia, may perhaps be the world's biggest controversial source--Can I trust it or can I not? The truth of Wikipedia is that most of the sources it derives the information from are credible; however, because of the many unprofessional people that transmit the information on to the website, the information becomes warped and contorted, no longer making it reliable. However, strides have been made by Wikipedia's authors and founders to ensure the reliability of its information. More experienced and intellectual college students are being licensed to edit Wikipedia; hence, making it a more reliable source. In the end, Wikipedia is a great source to use when you want quick and easily attainable information, but the quality of that information may not be totally reliable for important projects. The most important thing is to really analyze the information presented on the source.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyMT08mD7Ds
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page346376