1. Don’t Listen to the Village Idiot
Credible Sources
Don’t Listen to the Village Idiot

2. Credibility Definition:
1.capable of being believed; believable: a credible statement.
2.worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy: a credible witness.
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.

3. How do I know if my sources are credible?
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

4. How do I know if my sources are credible?
You can automatically rule out:
Wikipedia
Myspace
Sparknotes
Blogs
Friendster
Personal sites

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

6. Credible Internet Sources
Ways to tell a credible internet source:
Looks professional
The website doesn’t look like it was made by a 4-year- old 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

7. Credible Internet Sources
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

8. Credible Internet Sources
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

9. Citing Sources With MLA
It’s not as hard as it used to be.

10. Citing Works in Research Papers
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:
In college, plagiarism may fail you for an entire course
In college, plagiarism may result in expulsion, with no tuition refund

11. Plagiarism 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
Is easy to avoid
Citation makers
MLA style sheets

12. How to Cite Sources
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

13. Making Citations 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.

14. Citation Maker
Go to Son of Citation Machine
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.

15. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
Questions and Answers
If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.