Powerbase:A Guide to Sourcing

Template:SpinProfiles:Help Entries should try and give enough information on a person or group so that a person who knows nothing about them can come away informed. Try to write a profile clearly and logically, including background information, funding, current activities and information on key personnel, if it is an organization. Break the article down into sub-headings that are not sensationalist but try and summarise some of the issues in that section.

Please try and avoid over-long sentences and huge swathes of text that do not include paragraph breaks. Don’t of course forget to reference (See A Guide to Referencing). See also SpinProfiles:Editorial Policy and SpinProfiles:A Guide to the use of Tone

It helps too if you can be as specific as possible about the source of your information in the body text itself, in concise form, as this lends authority and a reassuring objectivity to what you are saying as well as putting potentially controversial views into someone else’s mouth.

Example:

INCORRECT: Joe Bloggs has been called “the biggest idiot who ever sat in the House of Lords”[5].

(NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION ON SOURCE IN THE TEXT OR THE REF BELOW. SAY WHO CALLED HIM THAT)

DEFINITELY INCORRECT: Joe Bloggs is “the biggest idiot who ever sat in the House of Lords”[5].

(SUBJECTIVE, IN THAT THE VIEW IS NOT ATTRIBUTED IN TEXT SO SOUNDS LIKE WRITER’S PREJUDICE; ALSO, NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION IN THE TEXT OR IN REF BELOW)

WORST OF ALL: Joe Bloggs is the biggest idiot who ever sat in the House of Lords.

(SUBJECTIVE AND WILL BE DISMISSED OUT OF HAND)

Notes

5. www.joebloggsanidiot.com/houseoflords

(THERE’S A RISK THAT THE LINK WILL SOON BE DEAD AND THERE IS NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION TO SEEK OUT ARTICLE/SOURCE)

CORRECT: According to Jane Smith, writing in the Guardian, Joe Bloggs is “the biggest idiot who ever sat in the House of Lords”[5].

ALSO CORRECT: Jane Smith, in her biography of Bloggs, calls him “the biggest idiot who ever sat in the House of Lords”[5].

Notes

5. Jane Smith, "Idiot in the House", The Guardian, 4 July 2008, p. xx.

Beware dead weblinks

Many Spinwatch articles are some years old and the weblinks in the refs are dead. We can’t assume that readers will hunt down sources for our information. If the source isn’t easy for them to access, they will simply discount the information.

Portal editors will need to keep an eye on the state of weblinks in their portal’s articles. Often you can track down live links to sources by doing a search at the Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

What is reputable?

The evaluation of reputable sources is not always easy. We think that the accuracy of information in published sources is not governed by how 'reputable' the source is or is regarded as. This is in part because many of the sources regarded as reputable in the mainstream are, in fact, often a key part of the problem of spin and propaganda, which this database has been set up to expose. So we have a policy which foregrounds accuracy over reputation of sources. So our policy is different from that of Wikipedia, for example: their policy is worth quoting as we think it highlights part of the problem faced in this area.

This is what Wikipedia says about Reputable publications:

Reputable publications include peer-reviewed journals, books published by a known academic publishing house or university press, and divisions of a general publisher which have a good reputation for scholarly publications.

We agree with this, though it is obviously the case that such sources are not beyond critique. For non academic sources, Wikipedia notes:

it is impossible to pin down a clear definition of "reputable." In general, most of us have a good intuition about the meaning of the word. A magazine or press release self-published by a very extreme political or religious group would often not be regarded as "reputable." For example, Wikipedia would not rely only on an article in the Socialist Workers' Party's newspaper The Militant to publish a statement claiming that President Bush hates children. However, if that same claim was in The New York Times, then Wikipedia could refer to the article (and to the sources quoted in the article). The political newspaper could, however, be used as a source of information about the party itself.

We think that this is a very revealing passage, which helps clarify the difference between reputation, evaluation and accuracy. Any statement that President Bush hates children is an evaluative statement. It should, therefore, be based on evidence. The evaluation cannnot be short circuited by relying on a source, 'reputable' or not. It has to be based on evidence which might be gleaned - in principle - from either the New York Times or a radical newspaper or website. But a significant part of what this site is about is providing a critique of mainstream (and sometimes 'radical') sources. How can we criticise the mainstream media and still use them as sources?

Wikipedia goes on:

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication. Is it openly partisan? Does it have a large or very small readership? Is it a vanity publisher? Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it shoots from the hip? If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

When dispute arises regarding whether a publication is reputable, you can attempt to get more editors involved and work toward a consensus. There is no clear definition, but don't ignore your intuition.

Since anyone can contribute information, why should anyone trust the SpinProfiles as authoritative?

As the authors of a book titled Trust Us, We’re Experts, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have given quite a bit of thought to the question of what makes information credible. SpinProfiles intentionally avoids invoking "trusted authority figures." Instead, its credibility will depend on the degree to which articles are well-written and backed with supporting documentation, terms of art from "less social" sciences where these are applicable, and the degree to which credibility specialists themselves feel they can stake their credibility on trusting it.

Burden of evidence

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question.

If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, SpinProfiles should not have an article on it.

Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page.

Random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced.

Credentialism

Credentialism is the undue reliance or emphasis upon credentials such as titles, awards, and college degrees as an indicator of a person or group's intellectual, financial or social worth; in particular, the worth of their opinions.

Although credentials can be abused, they are not valueless. Someone with professional or academic credentials from a credible source has at least spent some time studying or practicing in a particular area, even if their judgments aren't always correct. It is often appropriate to be suspicious of supposedly expert assertions for which credentialed proponents cannot be found. Conversely, though, one should not assume that an assertion is correct simply because someone with credentials claims that it is.

Remember that lots of important information has no dependence on credentials. Exclusive reliance on credentials can imply that statements of fact, and personal statements, neither of which require credentials, are unimportant.

Sometimes credentials can be used in a misleading manner. Sometimes a supposedly "expert" statement is made by someone identified as having credentials, without making it clear that the credentials are in a field unrelated to the statement. For example, while Laura Schlessinger has a counseling and social advocacy radio show titled "Dr. Laura", her only doctoral degree as of 2003 was a PhD in physiology. (Furthermore, she refers to her "post-doctoral studies" which were in an unrelated Masters level family counseling program, further leading listeners to assume she had a psychology doctorate.)

Other times credentials can come from suspicious or non-disinterested sources, or involve less oversight than a casual reader might believe. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard at various times in his life claimed various PhDs, in one case awarded by a diploma mill in California, and in other cases awarded by himself. Similarly, some Scientology front groups have advertised endorsements by other Scientology front groups, without the common Scientology connection being revealed.

Credentials can sometimes hint at possible bias on the speaker's part. If someone with a credential in either environmental issues or economics expresses opinions on an issue relevant to both, their remarks may reflect a bias favoring their own field. And those that have received awards or other favors from particular organizations may sometimes be biased concerning the agenda of those organizations. Like most other statements about credentials, though, this is far from a hard and fast rule.

The opposite of credentialism might be called justfolksism. (Perhaps someone will provide a term already in circulation.) A quote in a news story from a "citizen," "neighbor," or "employee" could be masking expertise and bias. For example, consider a citizen who comes to a demonstration and is quoted without disclosing the information that he or she is a an award-winning expert with a stake in one side of the issue or a paid operative of a political party or lobby.

Further reading

• Trust Us, We're Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Health

Sources in languages other than English

SpinProfiles is a British project and for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly.

Keep in mind that translations are subject to error, whether performed by a SpinProfiles editor or a professional, published translator. In principle, readers should have the opportunity to verify for themselves what the original material actually said, that it was published by a credible source, and that it was translated correctly.

Therefore, when the original material is in a language other than English:

• Where sources are directly quoted, published translations are generally preferred over editors performing their own translations directly.
• Where editors use their own English translation of a non-English source as a quote in an article, there should be clear citation of the foreign-language original, so that readers can check what the original source said and the accuracy of the translation.