Academic/Scholarly Sources vs. Nonacademic Sources

Academic Non-Academic

What are they?

Books, academic journal articles, expert reports Everything else . . .

Written By: Peer-Reviewed: It’s been examined by people who are experts on the topic

Scholar/academic or a professional in the field, someone who has an advanced degree or is clearly an expert on the subject of the article or book

May be written by a professional writer or journalist who is not an expert in the field

May be anonymous

Published By: Reputable Publisher (Professional organization, University Press, etc.)

Anyone else . . . website, magazine, blog, individual, etc.

Citation Style Has a formal citation system (i.e. in text references, footnotes, works cited)

Doesn’t offer much detail on sources or have a formal citation system

Audience People in the field, specialized audience The public, general audience

Design Features

Book or journal cover and pages tend to be plain in design. Depending on discipline area, there may be few or no pictures or graphics

Book, journal or website tends to be highly pictorial. Journals (magazines) and websites accept advertising.

Where do we find them?

Libraries and library databases Everywhere!

Academic or Nonacademic?

How does Wilson use non-academic sources?

For instance, Suck.com, that late 90s fount of whip-smart online snark, called Titanic a “14-hour-long piece of cinematic vaudeville” that “had the most important thing a movie can have: a clear plot that teaches us important new stuff like if you’re incredibly good-looking you’ll fall in love.

Suck said that Gummo evoked “the vertigo we encounter when people discover and make up new standards of cool and beauty,” a sensation resisted by mass society because those standards could be “the wrong ones, and we can’t allow ourselves to look at that too hard or long.” CNN.com’s review, on the other hand, described Gummo as . . .

In a study in the Journal of Consumer Research in 1998, sociologist Douglas B. Holt found that there was plenty of high-and-low cultural mixology going on among the people he interviewed in a small Pennsylvania town, especially among higher-status subjects. But the “low cultural capital” interviewees talked about their cultural choices as practical, fun, community-oriented and easy to relate to. Meanwhile the “high cultural capital” subjects described their preferences as showing authenticity, uniqueness, quality, cosmopolitanism and personal creative expression. Overall, to quote the Starkist tuna ad, lower-class respondents said what they liked “tasted good,” while the higher-class ones said what they liked was “in good taste.”

Why might we want to use non-academic sources sometimes? Why might they be useful to us in this paper?

Can non-academic sources be credible?

Evaluating Sources

What are some of the potential problems of working with non-academic sources?

Talk to the person next to you:

• What are some things that might make a source unreliable?

• When have you or someone you know fallen for an unreliable source?

• Why does it matter if we can’t tell reliable from unreliable sources?

Evaluating Evidence

Given the vast amount of information available online, students need to be able to distinguish between legitimate and dubious sources. Students need to ask a basic question: Where did this document I’m looking at come from? This task assesses whether students will stop to ask this question when confronted with a vivid photograph. Students are presented with a post from Imgur, a photo sharing website, which includes a picture of daisies along with the claim that the flowers have “nuclear birth defects” from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Although the image is compelling and tempting to accept at face value, successful students will argue that the photograph does not provide strong evidence about conditions near the nuclear power plant. Students may question the source of the post, arguing that we know nothing about the credentials of the person who posted this photo (especially since it appears on a site where anyone can upload a photo). Alternatively, students may point out that the post provides no proof that the picture was taken near the power plant or that nuclear radiation caused the daisies’ unusual growth.

By and large, students across grade levels were captivated by the photograph and relied on it to evaluate the trustworthiness of the post. They ignored key details, such as the source of the photo. Less than 20% of students questioned the source of the post or the source of the photo. On the other hand, nearly 40% of students argued that the post provided strong evidence because it presented pictorial evidence about conditions near the power plant.

Evaluating Evidence

As part of Stanford University’s study of students and online news, it asked middle schoolers to give reasons they might not trust the article by a Bank of America executive on financial planning. Almost 70% of 200 students responding didn't highlight the authorship as a reason for mistrust. A sample response: ‘I wouldn’t trust it because some millennials do have good money habits.’

Many news organizations have turned to native advertising as a source of revenue. By definition, native advertising tries to sell or promote a product in the guise of a news story. Native advertising makes it difficult for unsuspecting readers to know if and when there is an ulterior motive behind the information they encounter.

Unfortunately, native advertising proved vexing for the vast majority of students. More than 80% of students believed that the native advertisement, identified by the words “sponsored content,” was a real news story. Some students even mentioned that it was sponsored content but still believed that it was a news article.

Home Page Analysis:

As part of Stanford University’s study of students and online news, it asked middle schoolers which of the four tweets, above, were the most trustworthy. More than half of the 204 students responding trusted Lisa Bloom’s tweet more the one from NPR, noting it had the most information. A sample student response: ‘The best tweet for information is the first one because it actually shows him resigning in a picture, and it gives a caption saying that he is resigning.’

Claims on Social Media

Assignment 1.4: Annotated BibliographyYou will begin collecting sources for your project by compiling an annotated bibliography of at least four

nonacademic sources.

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources that includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources. Depending on your project or the assignment, your annotations may do one or more of the following.

● Summarize: Some annotations merely summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say?

● Assess: After summarizing a source, it may be helpful to evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?

● Reflect: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?

Assignment 1.4: Annotated BibliographyFor this assignment, I would like you to include summary and reflection in each of your annotations (feel free to also assess)! Give me an idea of what the source is about, and let me know how you could imagine using it in your project. Even if you aren’t sure yet, just make a guess about why it might end up being useful.

● MLA 8, follow formatting of sample entry

SAMPLETopic: Beyonce/Feminism

Weidhase, Nathalie. “'Beyoncé Feminism' and the Contestation of the Black Feminist Body.” Celebrity

Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, Feb. 2015, pp. 128–131. Taylor & Francis Online,

doi:10.1080/19392397.2015.1005389.

Weidhase’s article explores the debate surrounding Beyonce’s self-professed feminism. She explains that Beyonce’s

critics often think that the sexualized nature of her performances are in opposition to her supposed feminism. Weidhase

problematizes the claims of these critics and explore the racial dimensions of the charges against Beyonce by (often)

white feminists. Weidhase connects this debate about Beyonce’s feminism to a broader and more urgent issue, which is

the “ongoing victimisation and dehumanisation of black women on the grounds of their perceived hypersexuality” (129).

Ultimately, Weidhase makes an argument for a more intersectional look at Beyonce’s feminism, one that takes both race

and gender into account. This article will be helpful to my project because it focuses its discussion on Beyonce but also

embeds itself in broader conversations about race and feminism. I think I want to talk about the intersections of race and

feminism in my paper, so Weidhase is a good starting point.