A question of credibility

Chris Haughery
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There is a great deal of information to be had on any given topic. Some of it’s credible and some isn’t. How do we find this information and how do we decide if it’s credible? Do we as individuals decide, or are there appointed people who decide? Are there accepted forms of information which can give us credible answers to our questions? In this essay I will endeavor to answer these questions and provide a bases for understanding credibility.
I believe there are credible forms of information, which are regulated by qualified individuals who have mastered specific topics. Now that I have stated this, the question is, where do we find this information? I think the best place to start would be by looking at scholarly journals and trade publications. These sources form the foundation of credible information. The people who contribute to these journals and written works are considered credible because of the time and effort they have devoted to understanding the issue written about. This is where I went to find answers I had about urban sprawl.
My understanding of urban sprawl is still limited, so I decided to begin by asking some fundamental questions. The three questions I wanted to answer were first, what is urban sprawl? Second, what are its dangers? And third, what should be done about it? I began my search by looking through credible sources of information until I found desirable answers. According to one source, urban sprawl is defined this way: "Sprawl (n.) is a pattern of land use in an urban area that exhibits low levels of some combination of eight distinct dimensions: density, continuity, concentration, compactness, centrality, nuclearity, diversity and proximity"(Snyder, 2000). I found through another source that the dangers of urban sprawl center around environmental effects, the loss of valuable land, and the decline of the people’s sense of community (Cooper, 2004). I also discovered through research that urban sprawl can be discouraged, by regulating the uncoordinated building of roads. In addition, growth where transportation infrastructures are not adequate, should be prohibited (Maya,2008).
To find answers to the questions I had about urban sprawl, I searched through news articles and scholarly journals. By doing this I found answers, and I feel I can be fairly sure these answers are credible. The authors of this information are the authorities on the subjects. If there’s any accurate information available, it’s going to come from them. I could have searched for answers randomly on the web, and I probably would have found some. These answers can’t really be trusted, though. How do we know who wrote them? It could have been anybody with an opinion. Unfortunately, an opinion will not suffice when I’m trying to find credible information.
The tough part about finding accurate information is the effort you have to put into it. To find relevant information, a degree of effort has to be exerted. There is a lot of knowledge that must be evaluated in order to find exactly what you’re looking for.
In contrast, information on Wikipedia is not difficult to obtain. It’s very easy to search a topic there and find answers, credible answers at that. Yes, I think Wikipedia is a credible source of information, but I also feel this credibility remains undefined. For instance, I anonymously entered false information into the Wikipedia page on urban sprawl, and it stayed there for about a day, then it was taken down. This shows that someone is regulating these pages. Do they research the information posted to the pages? Who decided the information I placed there was wrong, an authority on the subject? If an authority is regulating the content of a Wikipedia page it seems that the information would be credible. With this said, I am still uncertain about Wikipedia, due to the fact that anyone is capable of posting content to most of the pages.
As I stated before, I believe there are credible sources of information. A degree of effort needs to be exerted to find these sources, but they are there. There will always be people who are the authority on any given topic, and their opinion is credible. Most of the time authorities write for journals or trade publications, and thus these sources are the most established forms of credible information.