From Judith McDaniel
Consider the source. Does it matter?
Well, yes, my mother always told me it did. What DID she mean by that? My friend who was always in need of a face-wash was probably not the best source for information on hygiene? LOL, as my Facebook friends say.
But why is it important to say that the great idea we are writing about started with someone else? Why not take credit myself? After all, when I have put my spin on it, I’m as much the owner of the idea as the source. And didn’t I say last week that you can copyright words, but not ideas? Yes, but here’s why source attribution matters—even for ideas.
1. If I got a great idea from a source, maybe someone else will too. It won’t hurt me to give someone else credit. Share the wealth, share the source.
2. I’ve evaluated the source and decided it is worth using. My evaluation may be sound. I may believe the academic credentials of the author are credible. If I share the source, I am demonstrating that I believe in it. If I hide the source, what am I demonstrating?
3. I thought about this issue last week when Shirley Sherrod was fired from her job on the basis of a clip from a speech she gave to the NAACP. The video clip was taken out of context and spliced to make her words appear to mean exactly the opposite of what she actually said. Those who reacted to the clip did not ask, what was the source of this information? If they had, they might have discovered that the blogger who posted it had been discredited for misinformation and for falsified videos on more than one occasion. Fox News and CNN originally ran the story without attributing the source, reporting the misinformation in a way that made it impossible to check.
I’ve heard the internet compared to the wild west of folklore—every person for him/herself. I don’t think the west was ever really like that and it is not the internet I want to help grow. Sharing our sources is one way to keep the information flow reliable and discoverable.
Tags: crediting sources, NAACP, Shirley Sherrod, sources
