39 Author and Publisher

You’ll always want to know who’s providing the information for a website or other source. Do they have the education, training, or other experience that make you think they are authorities on the subject covered? Or do they just have opinions?

The more you know about the author and/or publisher, the more confidence you can have on whether to use content from any specific source.

Authors and publishers can be individuals or organizations, including companies. (Webmasters  put things on the site but do not usually decide what goes on all but the smallest websites. They often just carry out others’ decisions but are not necessarily the content creators themselves.)

Sites that do not identify an author or publisher are generally considered less credible for many purposes, including for research papers and other high-stakes projects. The same is true for sources in other formats.

A Word about Anonymous Sources
For example, why use an anonymous source when there is very likely other sources that are more credible and reputable. In publications such as periodical articles, anonymous sources are usually letters to an editor and consists of rants with very little to support the rant and is written in a non-objective manner. Any source worth its salt will identify itself and stand by its word. That is why people who troll others on social media are often anonymous; anonymity makes them bold and courageous to say anything without fear of being challenged. Furthermore, opinion or editorial sources should largely be avoided not just for the fact that the author may not identify her/himself,  but for the fact that opinion and editorial sources are written to persuade you to agree with the opinion, which is not often objective, balanced, neutral, or well-sourced.

Having said this, it is important to note that there is another kind of  anonymous source. Journalists use  “anonymous sources” (for example, whistleblowers who might face financial or employment retribution if their identity is revealed) in investigative reporting; these journalists have other means and methods to verify information from anonymous sources.  We will discuss this more in the coming weeks.

Clues About an Author’s and/or Publisher’s Background

If they’re available, first take a look at pages called such things as “About This Site”, “About Us”, “Our Team”, “Our Mission”, or “What We Do”(and other similar pages mentioned in the earlier sections of this chapter) first. But you may need to browse around a site further to determine its author. Look for a link labeled with anything that seems like it would lead you to the author. Other sources, like books, usually have a few sentences about the author on the back cover or on the flap inside the back cover.

You may find the publisher’s name next to the copyright symbol, ©, at the bottom of at least some pages on a site. In books, the identity of the publisher is traditionally on the back of the title page.

Sometimes it helps to look for whether a site belongs to a single person or to a reputable organization. Because many colleges and universities offer blog space to their faculty, staff, and students that uses the university’s web domain, this evaluation can require deeper analysis than just looking at the address. Personal blogs may not reflect the official views of an organization or meet the standards of formal publication.

In a similar manner, a tilde symbol (~) preceding a directory name in the site address indicates that the page is in a “personal” directory on the server and is not an official publication of that organization. For example, you could tell that Jones’ web page was not an official publication of XYZ University if his site’s address was: http://www.XYZuniversity.edu/~jones/page.html. The tilde indicates it’s just a personal web page—in the Residences, not Schools, neighborhood of the web.

Unless you find information about the author to the contrary, such blogs and sites should not automatically be considered to have as much authority as content that is officially part of the university’s site. Or you may find that the author has a good academic reputation and is using their blog or website to share resources he or she authored and even published elsewhere. That would nudge him or her toward the Schools neighborhood. As you see, making a determination about a source’s “neighborhood” is not so black and white and often depends on the context of the information itself, how it is presented, and who the presenter is.

Learning what they have published before can also help you decide whether that organization or individual should be considered credible on the topic. Listed below are sources to use to look for what the organization or individual may have published and what has been published about them.

Making the Inference

Consider the clues. Then decide the extent that the source’s author and/or publisher is acceptable for your purpose. It might help to grade the extent that this factor contributes to the site being suitable on a scale like this one:

• A – Very Acceptable
• B – Good, but could be better
• C – OK in a pinch
• D – Marginal
• F – Unacceptable

You’ll want to make a note of the source’s grade for author and/or publisher so you can combine it later with the grades you give the other factors.