Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Stuart McDonald - Evaluating Sources


Scholar article

1.       The authors are from the Hong Kong Baptist University and the City University of Hong Kong.  The authors are not well known, I believe them to be students writing for completion of their program.
2.       The publisher is Emerald Group Publishing Limited.  This article was published as a peer-reviewed research paper.  The audience could be anyone interested in the dynamics and trends of the hiring process and the effects of personality.  They publish books, journals, and news so they have a wide band of experience, letting me trust their published content.  This paper was published in 2004.  The source doesn’t include contact information but it does include enough to find them if you seek out the information.
3.       The purpose of this text is to inform the reader of the research they conducted and show their results.  They used many other sources to create their work, citing them throughout.  This makes it appear more credible.  Their cited sources appear to be mostly secondary.  From the samples I read of the source, it seemed very scientific to me and I didn’t pick up on any bias.  Since this was written by students as a funded project, one might expect there to be bias in favor of students with good academic performance.  I found this source from Google scholar, and it is hosted at a “.com” domain.  This information is not extremely current, being published in 2004.
4.       I don’t think this resource will be very helpful to me, just considering what it focuses on.  It seems to be more about qualities that get you hired rather than what makes you successful. 


Google article
1.       The author does not hold a computer science degree but he is successful in his field.  He works for Open Software Integrators and helps with the Open Source Initiative.  He writes other articles about technology that are published online.
2.       The publisher is InfoWorld.  They publish other online articles about various technology topics and are seemingly focused on technology and business related audiences.  This specific article is targeted towards those seeking or pondering a computer science degree and possibly someone hiring new employees.  InfoWorld seems to have a professional layout and collection of articles so it seems reputable to me.  The specific article was published on September 11, 2012. The site has a link to the author's Google account so he can be contacted.
3.       The author is trying to get you to see his point that interest and skill are better to have than a college degree.  He gives his background story and tells how he did well without a degree in the field.  This article is a primary source, like a narrative.  He is definitely biased towards his position of not spending the time getting a degree.  This is definitely an expected bias however, as the title suggests.  I found this article through a quick Google search and it was the third result.  InfoWorld looks credible and professional to me and this article was written from a professional’s standpoint.  The site ends with “.com”, and there are advertisements so they are making some money somehow off of this content.  This information is very current and would be valuable to my research as it offers a primary perspective on the topic.
4.       I will almost certainly be using this source in my project as it offers a first-hand opinion from someone who does not have a degree in his field.  This account will help my audience see that it is a possible track to take, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to persuade someone.  This source will give credibility to one side of the argument in my topic, so it will be valuable in that respect.

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