{"id":758,"date":"2017-04-03T21:28:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T21:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-researchsuccess\/?post_type=chapter&p=758"},"modified":"2019-07-02T19:24:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T19:24:22","slug":"author-and-publisher","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-researchsuccess\/chapter\/author-and-publisher\/","title":{"raw":"Author and Publisher","rendered":"Author and Publisher"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_934\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"250\"]\"A The reputation of the author and publisher influences your confidence in a source.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nYou\u2019ll always want to know who\u2019s 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?\r\n\r\nThe more you know about the author and\/or publisher, the more confidence you can have in your decision for or against using content from that source.\r\n\r\nAuthors and publishers can be individuals or organizations, including companies. (Web masters usually put things on the site, but do not don\u2019t decide what goes on all but the smallest websites. They often just carry out others\u2019 decisions.)\r\n\r\nSites that do not identify an author or publisher are generally considered less credible for many purposes, including term papers and other high-stakes projects. The same is true for sources in other formats.\r\n

Clues About an Author\u2019s and\/or Publisher\u2019s Background<\/h3>\r\nIf they\u2019re available, take a look at pages called such things as About This Site, About Us, or Our Team first.<\/b> 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.\r\n\r\nYou may find the publisher\u2019s name next to the copyright symbol, \u00a9, 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.\r\n\r\nSometimes it helps to look for whether a site belongs to a single person or to a reputable organization.<\/b> Because many colleges and universities offer blog space to their faculty, staff, and students that uses the university\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\nIn a similar manner, a tilde symbol (~) preceding a\u00a0directory name in the site address indicates that the page is\u00a0in a \u201cpersonal\u201d directory on the server and is not an official\u00a0publication of that organization. For example, you could tell that Jones\u2019 web page was not an\u00a0official publication of XYZ University if his site\u2019s address was:\u00a0http:\/\/www.XYZuniversity.edu\/~jones\/page.html. The tilde indicates\u00a0it\u2019s just a personal web page\u2014in the Residences, not Schools,\u00a0neighborhood of the web.\r\n\r\nUnless you find information about the author to the contrary, such blogs and sites should not automatically be\u00a0considered to have as much authority as content that is officially part of the university\u2019s site. Or you may find that the\u00a0author has a good academic reputation and is using their blog or website to share resources he or she authored and even\u00a0published elsewhere. That would nudge him or her toward the Schools neighborhood.\r\n\r\nLearning what they have published before can also help you decide whether that organization or individual should be considered credible on the topic.\u00a0Listed below are sources to use to look for what the organization or individual may have published and what has been published about them.\r\n
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Tip:<\/strong> Find Out What the Author (Person or Organization) Has Published<\/h3>\r\nLibrary Catalogs<\/b>\u2014Search in a large library catalog to find books written by the author.\r\n\r\nFor example:\r\n