Source criticism (or information evaluation) is the process of evaluating an information source, i.e.: a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation, or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given purpose, a given information source may be more or less valid, reliable or relevant. Broadly, "source criticism" is the interdisciplinary study of how information sources are evaluated for given tasks.

Meaning

Problems in translation: The Danish word ''kildekritik'', like the Norwegian word ''kildekritikk'' and the Swedish word ''källkritik'', derived from the German ''Quellenkritik'' and is closely associated with the German historian

Leopold von Ranke Leopold von Ranke (; 21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history. He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis ...

(1795–1886). Historian Wolfgang Hardtwig wrote:

His anke'sfirst work ''Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494–1514'' (History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514) (1824) was a great success. It already showed some of the basic characteristics of his conception of Europe, and was of historiographical importance particularly because Ranke made an exemplary critical analysis of his sources in a separate volume, ''Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber'' (On the Critical Methods of Recent Historians). In this work he raised the method of textual criticism used in the late eighteenth century, particularly in classical philology to the standard method of scientific historical writing. (Hardtwig, 2001, p. 12739)

Historical theorist Chris Lorenz wrote:

The larger part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would be dominated by the research-oriented conception of historical method of the so-called Historical School in Germany, led by historians as Leopold Ranke and Berthold Niebuhr. Their conception of history, long been regarded as the beginning of modern, 'scientific' history, harked back to the 'narrow' conception of historical method, limiting the methodical character of history to source criticism. (Lorenz, 2001)

In the early 21st century, source criticism is a growing field in, among other fields, library and information science. In this context source criticism is studied from a broader perspective than just, for example, history or biblical studies.

Principles

The following principles are from two Scandinavian textbooks on source criticism, written by the historians Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997): * Human sources may be relics (e.g. a fingerprint) or narratives (e.g. a statement or a letter). Relics are more credible sources than narratives. * A given source may be forged or corrupted; strong indications of the originality of the source increases its reliability. * The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened * A

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

is more reliable than a secondary source, which in turn is more reliable than a

tertiary source A tertiary source is an index or textual consolidation of already published primary and secondary sources * The reliability of a given source is relative to the questions put to it.

"The empirical case study showed that most people find it difficult to assess questions of cognitive authority and media credibility in a general sense, for example, by comparing the overall credibility of newspapers and the Internet. Thus these assessments tend to be situationally sensitive. Newspapers, television and the Internet were frequently used as sources of orienting information, but their credibility varied depending on the actual topic at hand" (Savolainen, 2007).

The following questions are often good ones to ask about any source according to the American Library Association (1994) and Engeldinger (1988): #How was the source located? #What type of source is it? #Who is the author and what are the qualifications of the author in regard to the topic that is discussed? #When was the information published? #In which country was it published? #What is the reputation of the publisher? #Does the source show a particular cultural or political bias? For literary sources complementing criteria are: #Does the source contain a bibliography? #Has the material been reviewed by a group of peers, or has it been edited? #How does the article/book compare with similar articles/books?

Levels of generality

Some principles of source criticism are universal, other principles are specific for certain kinds of information sources. There is today no consensus about the similarities and differences between source criticism in the natural science and humanities. Logical positivism claimed that all fields of knowledge were based on the same principles. Much of the criticism of logical positivism claimed that positivism is the basis of the sciences, whereas

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate ...

is the basis of the humanities. This was, for example, the position of Jürgen Habermas. A newer position, in accordance with, among others,

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 '' magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics. Life Family ...

and Thomas Kuhn, understands both science and humanities as determined by researchers' preunderstanding and paradigms. Hermeneutics is thus a universal theory. The difference is, however, that the sources of the humanities are themselves products of human interests and preunderstanding, whereas the sources of the natural sciences are not. Humanities are thus "doubly hermeneutic". Natural scientists, however, are also using human products (such as scientific papers) which are products of preunderstanding (and can lead to, for example, academic fraud).

Contributing fields

Epistemology

Epistemological theories are the basic theories about how knowledge is obtained and are thus the most general theories about how to evaluate information sources. * Empiricism evaluates sources by considering the observations (or sensations) on which they are based. Sources without basis in experience are not seen as valid. *

Rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

provides low priority to sources based on observations. In order to be meaningful, observations must be explained by clear ideas or concepts. It is the logical structure and the well definedness that is in focus in evaluating information sources from the rationalist point of view. *

Historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...

evaluates information sources on the basis of their reflection of their sociocultural context and their theoretical development. * Pragmatism evaluate sources on the basis of how their values and usefulness to accomplish certain outcomes. Pragmatism is skeptical about claimed neutral information sources. The evaluation of knowledge or information sources cannot be more certain than is the construction of knowledge. If one accepts the principle of fallibilism then one also has to accept that source criticism can never 100% verify knowledge claims. As discussed in the next section, source criticism is intimately linked to

scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientifi ...

s. The presence of fallacies of argument in sources is another kind of philosophical criterion for evaluating sources. Fallacies are presented by Walton (1998). Among the fallacies are the '' ad hominem'' fallacy (the use of personal attack to try to undermine or refute a person's argument) and the straw man fallacy (when one arguer misrepresents another's position to make it appear less plausible than it really is, in order more easily to criticize or refute it.)

Research methodology

Research methods are methods used to produce scholarly knowledge. The methods that are relevant for producing knowledge are also relevant for evaluating knowledge. An example of a book that turns methodology upside-down and uses it to evaluate produced knowledge is Katzer; Cook & Crouch (1998).

Science studies

Studies of quality evaluation processes such as

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

, book reviews and of the normative criteria used in evaluation of scientific and scholarly research. Another field is the study of scientific misconduct. Harris (1979) provides a case study of how a famous experiment in psychology,

Little Albert The Little Albert experiment was a controlled experiment showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study also provides an example of stimulus generalization. It was carried out by John B. Watson and his Doctoral stud ...

, has been distorted throughout the history of psychology, starting with the author (Watson) himself, general textbook authors, behavior therapists, and a prominent learning theorist. Harris proposes possible causes for these distortions and analyzes the Albert study as an example of myth making in the history of psychology. Studies of this kind may be regarded a special kind of

reception history Reception theory is a version of reader response literary theory that emphasizes each particular reader's reception or interpretation in making meaning from a literary text. Reception theory is generally referred to as audience reception in the a ...

(how Watson's paper was received). It may also be regarded as a kind of critical history (opposed to ceremonial history of psychology, cf. Harris, 1980). Such studies are important for source criticism in revealing the bias introduced by referring to classical studies.

Textual criticism

Textual criticism (or broader: text philology) is a part of

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

, which is not just devoted to the study of texts, but also to edit and produce "scientific editions", "scholarly editions", "standard editions", "historical editions", "reliable editions", "reliable texts", "text editions" or "critical editions", which are editions in which careful scholarship has been employed to ensure that the information contained within is as close to the author's/composer's original intentions as possible (and which allows the user to compare and judge changes in editions published under influence by the author/composer). The relation between these kinds of works and the concept "source criticism" is evident in Danish, where they may be termed "kildekritisk udgave" (directly translated "source critical edition"). In other words, it is assumed that most editions of a given works is filled with noise and errors provided by publishers, why it is important to produce "scholarly editions". The work provided by text philology is an important part of source criticism in the humanities.

Psychology

The study of eyewitness testimony is an important field of study used, among other purposes, to evaluate testimony in courts. The basics of eyewitness fallibility includes factors such as poor viewing conditions, brief exposure, and stress. More subtle factors, such as expectations, biases, and personal stereotypes can intervene to create erroneous reports. Loftus (1996) discuss all such factors and also shows that

eyewitness memory Eyewitness memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other dramatic event that he or she has witnessed. Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face, where the ...

is chronically inaccurate in surprising ways. An ingenious series of experiments reveals that memory can be radically altered by the way an eyewitness is questioned after the fact. New memories can be implanted and old ones unconsciously altered under interrogation. Anderson (1978) and Anderson & Pichert (1977) reported an elegant experiment demonstrating how change in perspective affected people's ability to recall information that was unrecallable from another perspective. In

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

the concept of defence mechanism is important and may be considered a contribution to the theory of source criticism because it explains psychological mechanisms, which distort the reliability of human information sources.

Library and information science (LIS)

In schools of library and information science (LIS), source criticism is taught as part of the growing field of information literacy. Issues such as

relevance Relevance is the concept of one topic being connected to another topic in a way that makes it useful to consider the second topic when considering the first. The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sc ...

, quality indicators for documents, kinds of documents and their qualities (e.g. scholarly editions) are studied in LIS and are relevant for source criticism.

Bibliometrics Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Bibliom ...

is often used to find the most influential journal, authors, countries and institutions. Librarians study book reviews and their function in evaluating books. In library and information science the checklist approach has often been used. A criticism of this approach is given by Meola (2004): "Chucking the checklist". Libraries sometimes provide advice on how their users may evaluate sources. The Library of Congress has a "Teaching with Primary Sources" (TPS) program.

Ethics

Source criticism is also about ethical behavior and culture. It is about a free press and an open society, including the protecting information sources from being persecuted (cf.,

Whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

In specific domains

Photos

Photos are often manipulated during wars and for political purposes. One well known example is Joseph Stalin's manipulation of a photograph from May 5, 1920, on which Stalin's predecessor Lenin held a speech for Soviet troops that Leon Trotsky attended. Stalin had later Trotsky retouched out of this photograph. (cf. King, 1997). A recent example is reported by Healy (2008) about North Korean leader

Kim Jong Il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

Internet sources

Much interest in evaluating Internet sources (such as

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

) is reflected in the scholarly literature of library and information science and in other fields. Mintz (2002) is an edited volume about this issue. Examples of literature examining Internet sources include Chesney (2006), Fritch & Cromwell (2001), Leth & Thurén (2000) and Wilkinson, Bennett, & Oliver (1997).

Archaeology and history

"In history, the term historical method was first introduced in a systematic way in the sixteenth century by Jean Bodin in his treatise of source criticism, ''Methodus ad facilem historiarium cognitionem'' (1566). Characteristically, Bodin's treatise intended to establish the ways by which reliable knowledge of the past could be established by checking sources against one another and by so assessing the reliability of the information conveyed by them, relating them to the interests involved." (Lorenz, 2001, p. 6870). As written above, modern source criticism in history is closely associated with the German historian

(1795–1886), who influenced historical methods on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, although in rather different ways. American history developed in a more empirist and antiphilosophical way (cf., Novick, 1988). Two of the best-known rule books from the 19th century are Bernheim (1889) and Langlois & Seignobos (1898). These books provided a seven-step procedure (here quoted from Howell & Prevenier, 2001, p. 70–71): # If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved. # However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis. # The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text. # When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority"—i.e. the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness. # Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred, especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries. # If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measureably enhanced. # When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation), then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense. Gudmundsson (2007, p. 38) wrote: "Source criticism should not totally dominate later courses. Other important perspectives, for example, philosophy of history/view of history, should not suffer by being neglected" (Translated by BH). This quote makes a distinction between source criticism on the one hand and historical philosophy on the other hand. However, different views of history and different specific theories about the field being studied may have important consequences for how sources are selected, interpreted and used. Feminist scholars may, for example, select sources made by women and may interpret sources from a feminist perspective. Epistemology should thus be considered a part of source criticism. It is in particular related to "tendency analysis". In

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

, radiocarbon dating is an important technique to establish the age of information sources. Methods of this kind were the ideal when history established itself as both a scientific discipline and as a profession based on "scientific" principles in the last part of the 1880s (although radiocarbon dating is a more recent example of such methods). The empiricist movement in history brought along both "source criticism" as a research method and also in many countries large scale publishing efforts to make valid editions of "source materials" such as important letters and official documents (e.g. as facsimiles or transcriptions).

Historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians h ...

and

historical method Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be draw ...

include the study of the reliability of the sources used, in terms of, for example, authorship, credibility of the author, and the authenticity or corruption of the text.

Biblical studies

Source criticism, as the term is used in biblical criticism, refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the author and/or redactor of the final text. The term "

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

" is occasionally used as a synonym. Biblical source criticism originated in the 18th century with the work of

Jean Astruc Jean Astruc (19 March 1684, in Sauve, France – 5 May 1766, in Paris) was a professor of medicine in France at Montpellier and Paris, who wrote the first great treatise on syphilis and venereal diseases, and also, with a small anonymously publ ...

, who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity (

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Ody ...

in particular) to his own investigation into the sources of the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

. It was subsequently considerably developed by German scholars in what was known as "the

higher criticism Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of ...

", a term no longer in widespread use. The ultimate aim of these scholars was to reconstruct the history of the biblical text, as well as the religious history of ancient Israel. Related to source criticism is redaction criticism which seeks to determine how and why the redactor (editor) put the sources together the way he did. Also related is form criticism and tradition history which try to reconstruct the oral prehistory behind the identified written sources.

Journalism

Journalists often work with strong time pressure and have access to only a limited number of information sources such as news bureaus, persons which may be interviewed,

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

s, journals and so on (see

journalism sourcing In journalism, a source is a person, publication, or knowledge other record or document that gives timely information. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as "news sources". Examples of sources include but are not limited to officia ...

). Journalists' possibility for conducting serious source criticism is thus limited compared to, for example, historians' possibilities.

Legal studies

The most important legal sources are created by parliaments, governments, courts, and legal researchers. They may be written or informal and based on established practices. Views concerning the quality of sources differ among legal philosophies:

Legal positivism Legal positivism (as understood in the Anglosphere) is a school of thought of analytical jurisprudence developed largely by legal philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. While Bentham and Austin dev ...

is the view that the text of the law should be considered in isolation, while

legal realism Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. It is the view that jurisprudence should emulate the methods of natural science, i.e., rely on empirical evidence. Hypotheses must be tested against observations of the world. Legal realists ...

, interpretivism (legal), critical legal studies and feminist legal criticism interprets the law on a broader cultural basis.

Notes

References

* American Library Association (1994) ''Evaluating Information: A Basic Checklist''. Brochure. American Library Association * Anderson, Richard C. (1978). Schema-directed processes in language comprehension. IN: ''NATO International Conference on Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, 1977, Amsterdam: Cognitive Psychology and Instruction.'' Ed. by A. M. Lesgold, J. W. Pellegrino, S. D. Fokkema & R. Glaser. New York: Plenum Press (pp. 67–82). * Anderson, Richard C. & Pichert, J. W. (1977). Recall of previously unrecallable information following a shift of perspective. Urbana, Il: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading, April. 1977. (Technical Report 41). Available in full-text from: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/31/83/58.pdf * Bazerman, Charles (1995). ''The Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Disciplines''. 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin. * Bee, Ronald E. (1983). Statistics and Source Criticism. '' Vetus Testamentum'', Volume 33, Number 4, 483–488. * Beecher-Monas, Erica (2007). ''Evaluating scientific evidence : an interdisciplinary framework for intellectual due process''. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. * Bernheim, Ernst (1889). ''Lehrbuch der Historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie'' uidebook for Historical Method and the Philosophy of History Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. * Brundage, Anthony (2007). ''Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing, 4th Ed''. Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc. (3rd edition, 1989 cited in text above). * Chesney, T. (2006). An empirical examination of Wikipedia's credibility. First Monday, 11(11), URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_11/chesney/index.html * Encyclopædia Britannica (2006). Fatally Flawed. Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature. http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf Nature's response March 23, 2006: http://www.nature.com/press_releases/Britannica_response.pdf * Engeldinger, Eugene A. (1988) ''Bibliographic Instruction and Critical Thinking: The Contribution of the Annotated Bibliography''. Research Quarterly, Vol. 28, Winter, p. 195–202 * Engeldinger, Eugene A. (1998) ''Technology Infrastructure and Information Literacy''. Library Philosophy and Practice Vol. 1, No. 1 * Fritch, J. W., & Cromwell, R. L. (2001). Evaluating Internet resources: Identity, affiliation, and cognitive authority in a networked world. ''Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 52'', 499–507. * Gerhart, Susan L. (2004)
Do Web search engines suppress controversy?
''First Monday 9''(1). * * Gudmundsson, David (2007). ''När kritiska elever är målet. Att undervisa i källkritik på gymnasiet. hen the Goal is Critical Students. Teaching Source Criticism in Upper Secondary School'' Malmö, Sweden: Malmö högskola
Full text
* Hardtwig, W. (2001). Ranke, Leopold von (1795–1886). IN: Smelser, N. J. & Baltes, P. B. (eds.) ''International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences''. Amsterdam: Elsevier. (12738–12741). * Harris, Ben (1979). Whatever Happened to Little Albert? American Psychologist, 34, 2, pp. 151–160
link to full text
* Harris, Ben (1980). Ceremonial versus critical history of psychology. American Psychologist, 35(2), 218–219. (Note). * Healy, Jack (2008). Was the Dear Leader Photoshopped In? November 7, 2008, 2:57 pm resident Kim Jong Il, North Korea http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/was-the-dear-leader-photoshopped-in/?scp=7&sq=Kim%20Jong-il&st=cse * Hjørland, Birger (2008)
Source criticism
In: Epistemological Lifeboat. Ed. by Birger Hjørland & Jeppe Nicolaisen. * Howell, Martha & Prevenier, Walter (2001). ''From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. . * Katzer, Jeffrey; Cook, Kenneth H. & Crouch, Wayne W. (1998). ''Evaluating Information: A Guide for Users of Social Science Research''. 4th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. * King, David (1997) ''The Commissar Vanishes: the falsification of photographs and art in Stalin's Russia''. Metropolitan Books, New York. * Langlois, Charles-Victor & Seignobos, Charles (1898). ''Introduction aux études historiques'' ntroduction to the Study of History Paris: Librairie Hachette.
Full text
''Introduction to the Study of History''
Full text
* Leth, Göran & Thurén, Torsten (2000)
Källkritik för internet
. Stockholm: Styrelsen för Psykologiskt Försvar. (Retrieved 2007-11-30). * Loftus, Elizabeth F. (1996). ''Eyewitness Testimony''. Revised edition Cambridge, MA: Harward University Press. (Original edition:1979). * Lorenz, C. (2001). History: Theories and Methods. IN: Smelser, N. J. & Baltes, P. B. (eds.) ''International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.'' Amsterdam: Elsevier. (Pp. 6869–6876). * Mathewson, Daniel B. (2002). A critical binarism: Source criticism and deconstructive criticism. '' Journal for the Study of the Old Testament'' no98, pp. 3–28. Abstract: When classifying the array of interpretive methods currently available, biblical critics regularly distinguish between historical-critical methods, on the one hand, and literary critical methods, on the other. Frequently, methods on one side of the divide are said to be antagonistic to certain methods on the other. This article examines two such presumed antagonistic methods, source criticism and deconstructive criticism, and argues that they are not, in fact, antagonistic, but similar: both are postmodern movements, and both share an interpretive methodology (insofar as it is correct to speak of a deconstructive methodology). This argument is illustrated with a source-critical and a deconstructive reading of Exodus 14. * Mattus, Maria (2007). Finding Credible Information: A Challenge to Students Writing Academic Essays. ''Human IT 9''(2), 1–28. Retrieved 2007-09-04 from

* * Mintz, Anne P. (ed.). (2002). ''Web of deception. Misinformation on the Internet''. Medford, NJ: Information Today. * Müller, Philipp (2009). Understanding history: Hermeneutics and source-criticism in historical scholarship. IN: Dobson, Miriam & Ziemann, Benjamin (eds): ''Reading primary sources. The interpretation of texts from nineteenth and twentieth-century history''. London: Routledge (pp. 21–36). * Olden-Jørgensen, Sebastian (2001). ''Til Kilderne: Introduktion til Historisk Kildekritik'' (in Danish). 'To the sources: Introduction to historical source criticism'' København: Gads Forlag. . * Reinfandt, Christohp (2009). Reading texts after the linguistic turn: approaches from literary studies and their implementation. IN: Dobson, Miriam & Ziemann, Benjamin (eds): ''Reading primary sources. The interpretation of texts from nineteenth and twentieth-century history''. London: Routledge (pp. 37–54). * Rieh, S. Y. (2002). Judgment of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web. ''Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53''(2), 145–161. https://web.archive.org/web/20090731152623/http://www.si.umich.edu/rieh/papers/rieh_jasist2002.pdf * Rieh, S. Y. (2005). Cognitive authority. I: K. E. Fisher, S. Erdelez, & E. F. McKechnie (Eds.), ''Theories of information behavior: A researchers' guide'' . Medford, NJ: Information Today (pp. 83–87). https://web.archive.org/web/20080512170752/http://newweb2.si.umich.edu/rieh/papers/rieh_IBTheory.pdf * Rieh, Soo Young & Danielson, David R. (2007). Credibility: A multidisciplinary framework. ''Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 41'', 307–364. * Riegelman, Richard K. (2004). ''Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence. 5th ed''. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. * Savolainen, R. (2007). Media credibility and cognitive authority. The case of seeking orienting information. ''Information Research, 12''(3) paper 319. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20180416064908/http://www.informationr.net/ir///12-3/paper319.html * Slife, Brent D. & Williams, R. N. (1995). ''What's behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences''. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ("A Consumers Guide to the Behavioral Sciences"). * Taylor, John (1991). ''War photography; realism in the British press''. London : Routledge. * Thurén, Torsten. (1997). ''Källkritik''. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. * Walton, Douglas (1998). Fallacies. IN: ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Version 1.0, London: Routledge * Webb, E J; Campbell, D T; Schwartz, R D & Sechrest, L (2000). ''Unobtrusive measures''; revised edition. Sage Publications Inc. * * Wilkinson, G.L., Bennett, L.T., & Oliver, K.M. (1997). Evaluation criteria and indicators of quality for Internet resources. ''Educational Technology, 37''(3), 52–59. * Wilson, Patrick (1983). ''Second-Hand Knowledge. An Inquiry into Cognitive Authority''. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood.

External links

The Source Compass: Source Criticism

{{DEFAULTSORT:Source Criticism Error Library science Literary criticism Scientific method Scientific misconduct Skepticism Sources Information science