ENGL 105 Arrizon: Accuracy

Compare this article with this other article, and ask yourself these questions:

• Does the author of each one reference (or link to) other sources to back up their assertions?
• If so, do those references or links speak directly to the claims in the article? Or are they only sort-of related?
• If you wanted to verify the information in each article, does it give you clues for what to search for?
• Does either article claim something that seems unlikely, based on facts that  you already know about the topic? Does one article contradict the other (or itself)?

When it comes to scholarly, scientific, or technical information, you might not have the background to be able to judge accuracy just by your own knowledge of the topic. That's where peer review becomes important.

Peer review is the practice of having a panel of experts, perhaps fellow researchers in the same field, evaluate articles before they are published. Authors often ask friends and colleagues to read over and comment informally as they write; but peer review is different. Peer review is done for the journal's editors, and reviewers are (ideally) not people who already know the author. The peer reviewers check whether any scientific experiments were conducted using proper scientific methods, whether any statistical analysis was accurate, and if conclusions are valid. Also ideally, reviews are objective and not based on personal opinion.

While it's possible to "game" the peer review system, in general if an article was peer reviewed, you can trust that it is accurate.

Be warned: not all academic or scholarly journals are peer reviewed. If it was, often the article will list "peer reviewed" on the first or last page.