Authority Essay

The authority of an expert is way different then a user or a crowd of amateurs. When writing a paper you need understand the difference of these two and be able to spot the difference of them. There are advantages and disadvantages to an expert and to a crowd of amateurs, knowing the authority, and evaluating the quality of the information.
The advantages of an expert and crowd of amateur’s approaches are different. The experts are giving you true facts and would be a reliable source. You need an expert to make comments or changes that have good faith and are neutrality. The crowd of amateurs editing could be a good thing because then they can comment on the article as well, say if they find an error in something they read. Danny Wool is a user on Wikipedia, one day he came upon an error. He corrected an error about Jewish Holiday’s; Wool may be an expert on this religious so therefore he has good faith and neutrality, changing this error. The disadvantage of the expert approach and the crowd of amateurs are the experts may not know everything about that topic. They may assume they understand everything but they may not fully comprehend every detail about it. The disadvantages of the crowd of amateurs editing Wikipedia is that they may get bias or other users offend other users. To prevent commotion, the presidential election with George W. Bush and John Kerry, Wikipedia blocked Bush’s and Kerry’s cites because they didn’t want to have people arguing or being bias on their articles. You need to know and understand your author.
Looking at different sources you have to be careful at who the author is and whether or not it was proof read. You need to take each sources independently, if it is an article from a news group then you know that is has been proof read by many people. If you are getting information from a blog then you need to use precaution. You should look for who the author is and whether or not it is a doctor or just some user posting random information on a topic. Getting information from Wikipedia can go either way, there may be a doctor correcting an error, which would be a good source but that may not always be true. I try to stay away from Wikipedia personally just because I don’t know. Watching television to get information is a great source, watching the history channel, news stations, or even discovery. Once you have found a great source you need to understand the authority of the author.
The understanding of authority to evaluate the quality and usefulness of information sources is important. In a paper for school you or not going to use information from a blog. When writing a paper you understand where you are getting your information from, and somewhat of an understanding of who the author of the article is. Understanding the author entitles you to know whether it is a doctor, a professor, or just a user. Say my family is sitting around the table, talking about Miss America; we decided to look her up. I would be okay with using Wikipedia because for most cites about people it gives you a picture and a short description about them. Using Wikipedia in my social life is okay but using in my reports and essay’s is not okay.
When using sources you need to be careful, make sure you check what web sites and sources you are using. Use academicals ones, sources you know that are written by an expert. If using Wikipedia or a source like Wikipedia makes sure there is authority and the author understands the topic.