For the assignment this week we are
to visit an online article and determine the validity of the sources that are
used. The guidelines to use to research each source is from the document listed
below (Montecino, 1998) . While searching for
an article to do for this blog I found it hard to find one with at least a few
cited sources, but found an article about the recent wildfires in Northern
California (Gunnison & Nagournay, 2014) . The main source
that is used for this particular story is the New York Times website and also
some quotes from the District Attorney for El Dorado County Vern Pierson. The
story follows the wildfire that is believed to be due to arson in Placerville,
California. Since it has been started the fire has been given the name of “King
Fire” and has engulfed over 71,000 acres.
For researching the main article
page of being on New York Times makes the article seem to be a good source. The
article meets all of the qualifications in the above mentioned article to be a
reliable source. I have used this site on several occasions for both breaking
stories and also the entertainment side of things with seeing what is going on
in the lives of celebrities. With my history of using this site for news I have
never question the validity of any of the stories. With regards to the
Montecino article, according to the domain name this is a commercial site and
therefore one of the main jobs is to bring in money usually from advertisement.
One aspect of the article that helps develop its validity is the fact that
there is contact information for the actual building to be able to do your own
research or to ask questions. This article uses good information and seems to
be used to give information of this horrible event that is happening in the
state of California at this time.
One of the reasons that I find this article to be interesting is that I have been out to the area that this wildfire is effecting and also have a sister that lives just North of this area. Although my sister and her family are okay she tells me that she can stand on her front porch and see the smoke rising into the sky from this fire.
One thing that really helped me with
the credibility of this source is the history that the New York Times has since
it has been around for several years and seem to be concerned with only given
factual information. The problem, to me, of unrestricted web publishing is the
same as plagiarism. I say this to the point that everything must be checked and
therefore writers must be careful of what we do put onto the web. All-in-all
though this is a great website and I use this site, and will continue to use,
to get information and news of the day that interest me.
References
Gunnison, R. B., & Nagournay, A. (2014, September
18). Man is Arrested as Norhtern California Wildfire Rages, Threatening
Thousands of Homes. Retrieved from New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/us/king-fire-in-northern-california-spreads.html?ref=us
Montecino, V. (1998, August). Criteria to Evaluate
the Credibility of WWW Resources. Retrieved from mason.edu:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm
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