Don’t Listen to the Village Idiot

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Definition:
1.capable of being believed; believable: a credible statement.
2.worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy: a credible witness.
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Credibility is important!
◦ If your research is flawed, so is your argument.
◦ If you use credible sources, you can believe them, and your readers can believe you.

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Most books you find in library nonfiction are credible.
Most large newspapers are credible.
◦ New York Times
◦ Charlotte Observer
◦ Washington Post
Scholarly journals are usually credible.
◦ JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)
Most government publications are credible.
Reputable organizations are usually credible.
◦ American Cancer Society
◦ World Health Organization
◦ American Red Cross
Most information from colleges is credible.
◦ .edu websites

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You can automatically rule out:
◦ Wikipedia
◦ Myspace
◦ Geocities
◦ Blogs
◦ Friendster
◦ Personal sites

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The internet offers the BEST information on
MANY topics.
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The internet offers the WORST information on
MOST topics.
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You can use internet resources for research papers, but you have to be careful.

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Ways to tell a credible internet source:
◦ Looks professional
 The website doesn’t look like it was made by a 4-yearold with a crayon
 All or most links are working
◦ Information offered is easy to verify
 The website offers links to where they found their information
 The sources of their information is also credible

◦ It is easy to contact the owners of the website for more information or to ask questions
◦ The site is up to date
 Information from 1991 is not listed as “recent”
◦ There are no errors
 The site uses proper spelling and grammar
◦ The website is appropriate
 There is no inappropriate language, graphics, or photos

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These guidelines are not 100%
When in doubt, ask for help from a teacher or librarian
If you’re still not sure, DON’T use it
Be careful with .com sites
◦ All .com sites are trying to sell something, which means they are all biased in some way
◦ Sites with lots of advertisements are usually less credible

It’s not as hard as it used to be.

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If you use ANY information from a source in your paper, you must CITE it.
◦ Works Cited Page
◦ In-Text Citations
If you didn’t say it yourself and you don’t cite it, it is plagiarism.
Plagiarism can result in:
◦ A zero for the assignment
◦ A requirement to redo the entire assignment
◦ In college, plagiarism may fail you for an entire course
◦ In college, plagiarism may result in expulsion, with no tuition refund

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Is much easier to spot than it used to be
Doesn’t take very long for a teacher to check
◦ A teacher can type 10 words of your paper into a search engine, and within seconds, compare it to tens of thousands of other papers that have already been written
In high school, many teachers believe that you are guilty until proven innocent of plagiarism
Is easy to avoid
◦ Citation makers
◦ MLA style sheets

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Citation makers will write your works cited page for you if you have the right information on your sources
Books, articles, and websites are all cited differently
The more information you have, the better
When you find a source that you think you can use, you need to make sure you have several things

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Your checklist:
◦ Author
◦ Title
◦ Publication company
◦ Publication location
◦ Publication date
◦ Page numbers
◦ Date accessed online
◦ Editor
◦ ENTIRE web address
You might not always be able to find all of this information, but get as much as you can.

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Go to Son of Citation Machine http://citationmachine.net/
Click on “MLA” at the top left of the page.
Click on the type of source you want to cite.
Fill in the boxes for your source.
Click “Submit”.
Voila! Your citation is written.

If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.