Sources of Knowledge in Social Work

This assignment focuses on the sources of knowledge that are (not) valued in social sciences and the reasons for valuing or not valuing them. It discusses the importance of books and scholarly journals as valued sources of information in social work, and highlights the lack of value placed on websites like Wikipedia, information obtained from intuition, and newspapers. The assignment also provides references to relevant books and scholarly journals.

Running head: SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK
Sources of Knowledge in Social Work
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK 2
Sources of Knowledge in Social Work
Social work is a discipline that focuses of humanitarian affairs. Since its inception,
professionals in the discipline have endeavoured to make live of communities and societies
better. The discipline of social work is founded in such core principles as justice and
community empowerment (Martin, 2018). There are several sources of knowledge that are
valued in social works while others are not valued. This assignment is going to focus on the
sources of knowledge that are (not) valued in social sciences. The reasons for valuing or not
valuing are also going to be discussed.
One of the most important sources of knowledge in social science are books. Books
are usually authored by one or more professionals. Books are usually a compilation of the
most current research in a certain field. Due to this, the scope of social work books are
usually limited to certain aspects of social work. Another source of knowledge that is greatly
valued in social work are scholarly journals. These are usually written by professionals in
social work and then reviewed by other professionals to ensure that they are credible
(Thompson, 2017). These two sources are the most valued in social work.
There are certain sources of knowledge that are not valued in social work. One of
these is websites such as Wikipedia. Unofficial websites are not valued as sources of
information in the social sciences (Howe, 2017). When lecturers and professors are
instructing their students on the sources to use while doing their assignment, they always
discourage the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an information database where any person may
add information concerning a particular subject. Another source of information that is not
valued in social work is information obtained from intuition. Intuition refers to information
that a person claims to gain instinctively rather than through use if reasoning. Newspapers are
also not valued as a source of knowledge in social work.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK 3
There are several reasons why books and scholarly journals are valued as sources of
information in social work. Books are valued since they are informed by scientific research
(Payne and Askeland, 2016). Scientific research is carried in a manner that is acceptable to
the scientific community. This acceptability explains the reason why books are valued.
Scholarly journals are valued because of their high-quality information. Information
contained in the journals is reviewed by experts to ensure that it is true and unbiased. There
are also several reasons why some sources are not valued as sources of knowledge in social
work. Unofficial websites may be created and edited by any person who may so wish. This
increases the likelihood of people giving their own views in such websites. Personal views
are never acceptable as a source of knowledge in the social work profession (Rubin and
Babbie, 2016). Intuition is subjective and there is no way of verifying whether the
information obtained this way is credible. This renders the intuition an invaluable source of
information in social science. Newspapers may be a good source of information where
authors are not biased. However, since there is a likelihood for bias, they are not considered
to be good sources of information.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK 4
References
Howe, D. (2017). An introduction to social work theory (3rd ed). New York: Routledge
Martin, M. (2018). Verstehen: The uses of understanding in the social sciences (2nd ed). New
York: Routledge.
Payne, M. and Askeland, G.A. (2016). Globalization and international social work:
Postmodern change and challenge (3rd ed). New York: Routledge.
Rubin, A. and Babbie, E.R. (2016). Empowerment Series: Research methods for social work
(2nd ed). Toronto: Cengage Learning.
Thompson, J. D. (2017). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative
theory (3rd ed). New York: Routledge.