Reliable vs. Unreliable Sources ■Reliable Sources

Reliable vs. Unreliable Sources Reliable Sources TRUSTWORTHY SOURCES – Written by experts in that particular field Unreliable Sources SOURCES THAT CAN BE ALTERED BY ANYONE – sources, such as Wikipedia, are not reliable because the authors may not have a thorough knowledge or full understanding of a topic

Example of Reliable Sources Book Newspapers and magazines Peer reviewed journals Peer reviewed articles PhD or MBA dissertations and research Public library Scholarly articles

How will I KNOW if its RELIABLE? To determine reliability of online sites and organizations, look at the URL’s ending: – If the site ends in .edu, it is most likely a reliable educational institution. – If the site ends in .gov, it is most likely a reliable government website. These sites usually provide good sources for statistics and objective reports. – If the site ends in .org, it is usually a reliable non-profit organization. News sources: – Every television and print news source has a website – Beware! Sometimes their focus is to entertain rather than inform** WITH ANY SOURCE YOU MUST CHECK THE AUTHOR TO DETERMINE RELIABILITY

Examples of Unreliable Sources Wikipedia: although this is a good starting point for finding initial ideas about a topic, some of their information and attached resources may not be reliable Blogs, tweets Personal websites Forums Sites created by organizations that may have political or biased agendas Sites that provide biased information Self-published sources Opinionated articles such as editorials Online sources with an URL that ends in html, which is the basic building blocks of web pages Some online sources with an URL that end in .com are unreliable: Sites of companies that conduct their business over the internet. Some of these sites are unreliable because they have hidden agendas. THINK: are they trying to sell me something? A product? An idea?

Works Cited You need FIVE citations in MLA format on your works cited page. Your entries need to be in Alphabetical order based off of the first word in the entry If the entry goes past the first line, you need to make a hanging indention. This is done by pressing “enter” and then “tab” Hudson, Elizabeth. “Hanging Out with the Bats.” Texas Highways August 1994; Pages 14-19.

How to format entries Book, one author: Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publishing Company, year of publication. WORKS CITED ENTRY EXAMPLE – Weinburg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Pantheon, 1992. PARENTHTICAL CITATION EXAMPLE: One may see how “all logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically” (Weinburg 25).

How to format entries General Webpage: Title of Page. Date page was published. Organization or Owner of Page. Date you accessed the page. entire URL WORKS CITED ENTRY EXAMPLE: Space Telescope Science Institute Home Page. 20 November, 1997. NASA. 28 October, 2004. http://www.stici.edu . – NOTE: If you are struggling to identify a page title, look at the internet tab at the top of your page. PARENTHETICAL CITATION EXAMPLE: Through ample research, one will discover how the goal of the Office of Public Outreach is to “[meet] the needs of the general public and science communicators by connecting to three user communities: news media, online audiences, and venues offering in-person interactions” (Space Telescope Science). – This should be the first word for few words in the Works Cited Entry, which will usually be the title of the page.

How to format entries An article from an online database: Last name, first name. “Article Title.” Original Journal from Which it Came. Edition or Volume number. (Year of publication): Page numbers. Title of Database. Web. Access Date. WORKS CITED ENTRY EXAMPLE: Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal. 50.1 (2007): 173-96. ProQuest. Web. 27 May, 2009. PARENTHETICAL CITATION EXAMPLE: (Langhamer 25)—If author not given, give the title of the article in quotation marks inside the parentheses.

WHAT YOU NEED IN LAB Google Scholar Destiny NC Wise Owl PAY ATTENTION TO THE WEBSITES MRS. STRANGE SHOWS YOU Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles and books

Work Cited Austin Peay State University. “Reliable and Unreliable Sources”. Academic Support Center Writing Lab. Oct 29 2012. Web.