Importance of Credible Sources in Academic and Professional Writing

This assignment explores the critical role of credible sources in both academic and professional writing. It emphasizes the importance of using reliable information to support arguments, avoid plagiarism, and maintain the trust of readers. The paper discusses the impact of credible sources on a student's ability to gain knowledge and the consequences of using non-credible sources. It highlights the availability of information on the internet and provides a comparison between journals and websites, using the Metzger credibility tool to evaluate source accuracy. The paper stresses the importance of using credible sources to avoid providing inaccurate information that may harm others and also to protect one's career and profession. The assignment emphasizes the need for learners to evaluate sources to determine which are credible and which are not, particularly in academic research. The author concludes that using credible sources helps to improve writing skills and expand knowledge.

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Credible Sources
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Question 1
Importance of using credible sources in academic writing
At all levels of education, particularly at the tertiary level, learners are expected to
research, gather and apply the information that is correct and accurate. In today’s information
age, the internet has been able to provide students with a lot of information and data, but not all
sources that are found there are credible (Donelan, Kear & Ramage, 2012). This is the reason
why it is vital to evaluate sources of information to ensure that what they write in their research
is up to date and relevant. As a university student and a tertiary learner, using credible sources in
my research and writing will help me support my work with evidence hence avoiding plagiarism.
This will leave a positive impact on those who will get to read it as it shows my effort to
communicate my ideas using reliable sources.
As a student who aims to get new ideas and gain knowledge in a given field, using
sources that are reliable is very crucial. First, using credible sources any time am doing research
or writing an essay shows that I have an understanding of the ideas related to my topic. This is
because learning does not only involve communicating personal knowledge but also
understanding the literature available to give my opinion in response to what was written by
others. Wette (2010) has taught me the need to use credible sources in my work because first, it
helps increase the trust of the people who read my work (Wette, 2010). Using reliable sources
will make the readers comfortable knowing that they will be about to locate the sources that I
have used hence trusting my work to be ethical and accurate. Also, using reliable sources will
improve the quality of my work because I will be able to support my arguments and points of
view using the evidence from that particular source.

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Question 2
Using credible sources for professional writing
In real life, people make decisions depending on the information they acquire from
books, internet, and journals. In case someone makes a wrong decision concerning a sensitive
matter that might harm other people and it happens you are the one who provided that
information to support such a decision then most probably, you will have to bear the
consequences. Therefore, as a professional, using credible sources in my writing will help me
avoid providing inaccurate and misleading information that may end up hurting other
people(Field-Springer & Striley, 2015). Besides, using reliable sources in my professional
writing is one of the easiest ways of attracting more people’s attention and it will make them take
me seriously since they know anything they read from me is correct and they can rely on it. The
more reliable my sources are the more readers will appreciate my work.
Professionally, using sources that are not credible to write an article is a grave offence.
Because if one is caught using sources that are not credible, they may be jailed or even lose their
jobs in the process. So, using reliable sources for my writing is a way of protecting my career
and profession. As a professional writer or an academic writer, it is crucial to use credible
sources because it shows my ability to gather information from different materials and then
integrating them to give my opinion (Ng’ambi, 2008). By doing this, it becomes easier to meet
the expectations of the people who rely on my work for information. Additionally, using credible
and correct sources is a way of enriching and expanding knowledge on various issues in the
society which is also a way of growing my career.

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Question 3
Credible and non-credible sources
In the last few decades, internet has become part of our lives and at the same time a significant
tool for communication and information. (Field-Springer & Striley, 2015). Typically, in
academic research learners have various sources of information to choose from such as journals,
websites, social media posts and online books. However some sources are credible than others
and learners have a responsibility of evaluating these sources to determine which are credible
and which are not. Take for instance searching for information about communication and
language using a journal and a website. Normally, a website lacks the author’s name and year of
publication compared to journals which are well documented. In this case, a journal is more
accurate than a website because it is easier for a learner to evaluate the credibility of the
information. Metzger credibility tool helps to scrutinize the credibility of a source using five
approaches. These approaches are objectivity, scope of the information, accuracy, currency, and
the source of information (Metzger, 2011).
Using Metzger credibility tool it is easy to determine that a journal is more credible than
a website because unlike a journal website content lacks editorial review. Additionally, website
information lacks professionalism since some of it lacks the identity of the author and reputation.
Most of the journals are written by professionals and must be filtered through professional
gatekeepers before it is published thus making them more accurate (Metzger, 2011). Using

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credibility tools such as Metzger assists in evaluating sources different sources of information
and to determine which are more accurate. Using credible sources as a learner helps avoid
plagiarism. Being a learner who is much interested in improving my writing skills and growing
my career, using journal articles as a source of information instead of websites is very crucial
because journals are more accurate compared to websites.
References
Donelan, H., Kear, K., & Ramage, M. (2012). Online Communication and Collaboration.
Routledge.
Evaluating Sources | UMUC. (2018). Retrieved from
http://www.umuc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/
evaluating-sources.cfm
Field-Springer, K., & Striley, K. (2015). Amazing race: Finding and correctly citing credible
sources. Communication Teacher, 30(1), 22-26. doi: 10.1080/17404622.2015.1102308
Going to the sources: a guide to historical research and writing. (2013). Choice Reviews Online,
51(02), 51-0623-51-0623. doi: 10.5860/choice.51-0623
Metzger, K. (2011). Helping Students Conceptualize Species Divergence Events Using the
Online Tool “TimeTree: The Timescale of Life”. The American Biology Teacher, 73(2), pp.106-
108.

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Ng’ambi, D. (2008). A Critical Discourse Analysis of Students' Anonymous Online Postings.
International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 4(3), 31-39.
doi: 10.4018/jicte.2008070104
The Importance of Reliable Online Sources -- THE Journal. (2018). Retrieved from
https://thejournal.com/Articles/2003/10/01/The-Importance-of-Reliable-Online-Sources.aspx
Wette, R. (2010). Evaluating student learning in a university-level EAP unit on writing using
sources. Journal of Second Language Writing, 19(3), 158-177. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2010.06.002