Week 2 - Sources

 Now that I am posting something on the internet for all to see, does it make my written word accurate? Does it mean that anyone who reads this should take it as the sole source to be quoted and potentially ruin a project? If there is contention, how do we know that we are making a the right decision to take someone's word on a matter? Finding a credible course of information is often more difficult because there are no regulations against correcting false information on the internet. Unlike news channels in the USA, there is no reprisal for articles posted that do not even permit comments. Relying on a source that is not validated can lead you astray. Moreover, the difficult part to finding a source of data is verifying that it is accurate.

There are several methodology to finding a credible source that are free and will not take long. Initially, if you are looking for a specific answer to a question and do not know where to start, you can simply start using a search engine. Doing so should land you with several articles, forums, and potentially published books on the matter. While articles and forums are not usually considered scholarly, they can point you in the right direction. Often times, forums will quote a book or a famous subject matter expert. From there you can modify your search to find editorials, speeches, and publications that you should be able to quote.

When it comes to evaluating a source, the chief concern is to get publications that have been scrutinized, tested, and validated by their peers. This is the just like the process to validate a theory -- peer review. The peer review process is an excellent way to confirm that a speaker/author on topic is giving information that is repeatable by others.

For scholarly journals, most universities have both online and in-person access. However, you may be in luck when you search for scholarly journals on Google.com. Although more times than not, you will need an account that has access to the archives as this information can be locked behind a fee.

Here are a couple sites that I specifically consider as legit sources of truth:

https://www.omicsonline.org/computer-science-journals-impact-factor-ranking.php

This site has both journals and conferences that can be watched, quoted, and openly discussed among your peers. It also references IEEE conferences and several other sites that have peer-reviewed articles. 

https://thehackernews.com

While this is a bit more showy and does not offer a means for readers to comment, it does usually list its sources. When they quote a publication or a person, they make sure they list who they were, where they are from, and their back ground experience to provide relevance to the topic.

https://www.us-cert.gov/

This is a government hosted site that published articles, digital security trends, and reliable information about security practices. Taking some of their articles and doing a simple google search shows that other sites are reporting the same information. This helps with their credibility.