Reliable Source
I learned today that if your paper wont be considered a reliable source, there’s no real point in gathering information from “reliable sources”.
Think about it. You’re doing a history paper on the progression of 3-D movies throughout the 1900s. There is a website specifically devoted to this topic, made by a person the same age as you, for a history project. But your teacher says you can’t use it, because it’s not a reliable source.
And we can understand that maybe this person didn’t research movies because they had to, but because they wanted to, or because they felt like posting something random. So they didn’t put all of their time into it.
Who’s to say, though, that kid didn’t spend just as much, or more, time than you putting together all of this information. It says he did this for a school project, you’ve done some research already; don’t you trust him? Shouldn’t we be able to?
And if you put your carefully researched article on your school’s website, the next person who finds it and use it for a school project will be told no, because “it’s not a reliable source”. So then, really, what’s the point of this? Your actions don’t matter to other people. School does not prepare you for the real world, where you have to look at things besides archives. Like, your peer’s work.
Teachers are hypocritical. So is school.
