Monday, September 27, 2010

[citation required]

I've been following a variety of different blogs and news sites for a while now, and there is something that really bothers me especially in the "Wiki-age" (I don't know if that's coined yet, but I'll take credit for it). People often talk about stories they heard or things they were talking about with their friends, and while I appreciate the addition of these anecdotes to the overall discourse, I find it disturbing that people so often fail to cite any resources. Even a cursory glance through the various online encyclopedias would be enough for me to lend a small amount of credibility to what a person means to say. Instead, I predominately see that people will, online or in personal conversation, mention a news report they heard from wherever in order to lend themselves credibility in a given topic. Now, while I have been guilty of this in the past I usually save these "heard it on the radio" situations for times when I want to start a conversation or change the subject. Very rarely will I use them as a source to back up a point in a debate (or heated argument for that matter).

Whether in print or in person, I think the whole idea of good conversation regarding any matters of fact or politics would be better served if people would simply keep their mouths shut when they don't have any real cogent evidence to back up what they're saying. We can aruge theory, strategy or ethics until the sun comes up but when we think we can interject some unvarifiable content into the conversation we begin to stray away from what I believe to be honest discourse. Its not as though I believe these people or liars, rather that I simply can't trust their interpretation of the data they were presented, the slant which was put on it or the way they are choosing to convey it to me. There's a lot lost in the process of hearing, understanding, and relating for it to be of any importance to a decent exchange.

So in short, no one cares about that thing you heard on NPR which makes your side of the argument the correct one. And no, I don't believe your statistics, or theirs for that matter.

10 comments:

  1. quite true.
    personally I don't even have a high opinion of wikipedia.. at least by uni standards it's anything but useable.
    either way, citing is important.

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  2. I don't really dig Wikipedia either. But when it's just casual without any real academic merit, like in a blog or opinion post it's worth using just so your readers know whats up.

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  3. Yeah, all of my teachers hated that too, I think it all stems from the fact that its really time consuming to fact check and cite sources, and in this day in age where information moves and changes faster than light we start to get lazy.

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  4. Greatest mystery about credibility of mass media...

    In my opinion it's just another tool to control us, little, small, unawere people.

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  5. agreed, so many people do talk about certain subjects blindly without knowing much about it to begin with or citing anything credible which makes reading it pointless

    eggs are bad

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  6. This is very true. The world has become one of ignorance and arrogance.

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  7. I agree on most things you said with your post, but have an issue with a little bit of it. If you are arguing a point in person, can you really cite sources that well? The best I could come up with today when discussing pregnancies with another student was something I read in a medical journal previously, as I stated such. I couldn't recall which journal it was exactly, so am I to be discredited just for not remembering that it was New England Medical Journal, page 38, paragraph 4?

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  8. You speak like a wise man. I bet you are one.

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  9. Shakin : This is a slippery slope kind of thing, I recognize that. It all depends on the credibility of the person you're talking to, and how much you know they know about the subject. When I know a person knows about a subject, or it happens to be their area of expertise I have no problem taking what they have to say or studies they mention at face value. However, the vast majority of the time this is not the case. This is why I don't particularly like to have conversations based around contentions of fact, because most of the time they're circular and not very productive because neither side is willing to trust the sources of the other person, and for good reason.

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