Читать книгу Effective Writing in Psychology - Bernard C. Beins - Страница 42

For a paper about serial killers, the following four sources are relevant:

1 Wikipedia has an entry on serial killing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer.

2 Through Google Scholar you can find an article titled “Predicting serial killers' home base using a decision support system” by David Canter, Toby Coffey, Malcolm Huntley and Christopher Missen in Journal of Quantitative Criminology.

3 Through PsycINFO you can find “Critical characteristics of male serial murderers” by William B. Arndt, Tammy Hietpas, and Juhu Kim in American Journal of Criminal Justice.

4 A Yahoo search with the key words “serial killer psychology” connected you to a page on the Crime Museum's website: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime‐library/serial‐killers.

Which source(s) will be useful and credible for an academic paper on serial killers? Which source(s) would increase your reader's confidence in your ideas? Use the following points to assess the sources.

 Using sources written by psychologists for psychologists may strengthen the credibility of your paper.

 Using sources that appear in an academic publication may strengthen the credibility of your paper.

 Using sources that are NOT written by psychologists for psychologists may indicate to your reader that you were too lazy to look for scholarly sources.

 Even if it contains accurate information, using a source that is not peer reviewed and does not have references does not meet standards of academic writing and may weaken the credibility of your paper.

Anyone with access to a computer, time, and the ability to make a web

page can place information on a personal website, so you want to be particularly alert when you encounter online content that is not part of an already established academic journal. However, do keep in mind that many academic journals are open access and make their content available as freely as that on a personal web site (see https://doaj.org for a list of peer‐reviewed open‐access journals), and you can often find citation information and abstracts for scholarly sources online.

In general, the five areas you want to consider when getting information from websites are accuracy, authority, objectivity/advocacy, currency, and coverage. We briefly explain these categories in Table 3.2 and illustrate how they can be used to determine the validity of online information.

Table 3.2 Evaluating Internet Sources

Evaluation category	Questions to ask
Accuracy	Can you verify any of the information from your own experience, and does the information seem consistent with other sources you have found? Are there references or links indicating the source(s) of the information? Are you able to access the references cited, either through the library or through the internet, and do those sources seem credible? Does the website conform to standards of academic writing and grammar?
Authority	Who is taking credit for the information on the site? Is there an author listed? If an author is not listed, why? What credentials does the author have that make him or her qualified to write about this topic? Are you able to contact the author or find out other background information?
Objectivity or Advocacy	What kind of website is this (e.g., entertainment, business, reference, news, advocacy, or personal), or what is the site's purpose? What is the site's domain (e.g., .com, .gov, .edu, .org, .net, .mil, or a country code such as .uk)? How might the site's purpose affect the kind of information it includes or excludes? Does the site present different perspectives?
Currency	When was the information put on the website, and when was it originally written? What is the copyright date, and when was the page was last updated? Do hyperlinks on the site take you to active web pages?
Coverage	Does the author present information in a fair and comprehensive manner? What kind of tone does the author use? Whose perspectives and voices are included and excluded? Are perspectives other than the author's acknowledged and addressed? How does the author treat ideas that conform to or differ from the author's perspective? What kinds of outside support does the author use?

For some websites, an organization or sponsor claims authorship, rather than a single author. In this case, you want to ask the same questions you would of a single author. If it is not possible to determine who sponsors the site, you can try truncating the URL (the web address) by deleting the part of the address to the right of the leftmost single backslash and then hit “enter.” For example, http://www.pharmtech.com/virus‐spread‐threatens‐pharmaceutical‐supplies‐and‐clinical‐research takes you to an article about the impact of the coronavirus (COVID‐19) on access to pharmaceutical products more generally. Truncating the URL to the left‐most single backslash will give you http://www.pharmtech.com, which is a website aimed at people within pharmaceutical industries. Knowing this information gives you important context for assessing the credibility of any content within that site.

For example, take the following address, which leads you to a site with information about evaluating websites: https://lib.nmu.edu/help/resource‐guides/subject‐guide/evaluating‐internet‐sources. Truncating it to the left‐most single backslash will give you the URL https://lib.nmu.edu, which is the library's home page for Northern Michigan University. Knowing that this is an educational site, rather than a commercial or personal one, gives you information that can help determine the purpose of the information on the page.

Determining the source and purpose of the information you find on the site can highlight some of the possible biases or assumptions that shape the information. Each of the following URLs contains information about ADHD, but each has a different purpose, as Table 3.3 indicates. To practice evaluating websites, apply the criteria outlined in Table 3.2 to the following links:

 https://www.farrin.com/dangerous‐drugs/Ritalin‐lawyer‐north‐carolina‐legal‐help is a page for a law firm;

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/drugs is part of a public television series about medicating children;

 https://www.team‐adhd.com/adhd‐treatment is part of the website for a pharmaceutical company;

 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention‐deficit‐hyperactivity‐disorder‐adhd/index.shtml is part of the National Institute of Mental Health's website.

Table 3.3 Web Pages, Advocacy, and Coverage for ADHD

URL	https://www.farrin.com/dangerous‐drugs/Ritalin‐lawyer‐north‐carolina‐legal‐help
Host/author	James Scott Farrin, a law firm
Site's purpose	This site is a marketing tool to recruit potential clients for the law firm, which is a for‐profit business.
Possible limitations of the site	This site offers information about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specifically about the dangerous side effects of drugs used to treat ADHD. Although the medical information on this site might be accurate, because the site does not provide information about the benefits of pharmaceuticals used to treat ADHD or about nonpharmaceutical treatment, the coverage is weakened. Therefore, any arguments you make about treating ADHD should draw information from sources that are independent of this website.
URL	http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/drugs
Host/author	The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a nonprofit media project
Site's purpose	PBS is an educational resource without corporate affiliations. It advertises itself as a resource that “serves the American public with programming and services of the highest quality, using media to educate, inspire, entertain and express a diversity of perspectives” (PBS, 2018).
Possible limitations of the site	The information on this page has been put together through Frontline, a public affairs series that PBS sponsors. This site is an informative one, and because it is not affiliated with an organization that has a specific political or business agenda, it should offer a variety of information, representing different perspectives about treating ADHD. However, PBS is a popular source with a lay audience. Although it references scientific studies and interviews scientists, it does not present the studies themselves. Furthermore, PBS relies on monetary support from viewers, so, like a newspaper or magazine, it may foreground more sensational or controversial information. Therefore, any arguments you make about treating ADHD should draw from scholarly sources as well, and you want to make sure you read any articles mentioned on this site in their entirety.
URL	https://www.team‐adhd.com/adhd‐treatment/
Host/author	Supernus Pharmaceuticals Corporation
Site's purpose	The purpose of this site is to inform care givers about their options for treating a child with ADHD. Because the company is a for‐profit company that manufactures and sells pharmaceuticals, one purpose of this site is to present pharmaceuticals as an attractive option for treating ADHD.
Possible limitations of the site	Because Supernus ultimately wants to sell pharmaceuticals, it is more likely to include information that shows the benefits of drugs for children diagnosed with ADHD. This site also offers information about therapy and behavioral management as treatment options; and it cites a number of scholarly sources, which increases the strength of its coverage. However, because it is a popular source that targets lay people and is sponsored by a company that wants to sell the product it describes, any arguments you make about treating ADHD should draw from scholarly sources as well.
URL	http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention‐deficit‐hyperactivity‐disorder‐adhd/index.shtml
Host/author	The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Site's purpose	The NIMH website states that the mission of NIMH is “to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure” (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2011). The purpose of the NIMH website is to provide information related to mental health issues.
Possible limitations of the site	This site has links to a wide variety of information, and its informative purpose indicates that, like the PBS site, you would find useful coverage of different perspectives about ADHD. Additionally, the site links to resources such as scholarly publications—although the publications are not part of the NIMH site—which strengthens the site's credibility. Nevertheless, the information is directed to a lay audience, so this site alone would not provide sufficient evidence to support a scholarly argument.

Knowing the purpose of a site's existence can point to the possible biases or assumptions that shape its content. For example, the third URL does not contain a company's name, but a pharmaceutical corporation sponsors the site. Although the company ultimately wants to sell pharmaceuticals, the information is not necessarily inaccurate; however, it could mean that some facts are highlighted whereas others are deemphasized. Knowing this will help you ascertain the credibility and accuracy of the information on the site.

Asking the questions we have offered in this chapter—both for popular and scholarly sources and for websites—will help you identify biases or assumptions in the information presented. You might also find some ideas or perspectives that have been left out or with which you disagree. Noting these limitations will not only help you determine the kind of source you have found, it will also give you insight into the credibility and validity of the author's (or authors') argument. However, remember that all research is based on biases and assumptions and that almost any area of psychology will have reputable scholars who disagree about the best methodology or hypothesis, or how to interpret results. Thus, identifying limitations does not necessarily mean that the source is invalid. Rather, it may have strengths you can draw on and weaknesses that you should consider when developing a hypothesis, structuring an experiment, and supporting your claims.