Many of us have undoubtedly been embarrassed on an occasion or two because we have misstated something in conversation. Probably all of us have been forewarned about information in the print media. We have all heard the old saw that you can t believe everything you read, and most of us consider the source when we scan the tabloids while waiting in the check-out lines of grocery stores. From the print media, we learned of the necessity to distinguish editorials from news. The recent political parties nominating conventions aptly remind us of how scripted news events can be and of the political nature of images.
Scholarship is dependent on the quality of the information it incorporates into the study.
Although specific attention is given to validity and reliability as they relate to data gathering and measurement in research methods, academe too rarely confronts head-on other issues of quality control. Teachers just kind of hope that the lessons about information will be absorbed somehow. We want to make some of those lessons more explicit in this course. Professors are fond of referring to the academic or scholarly journals as good sources of information. First, many of them are outlets for professional organizations and are not for-profit enterprises.