Scholarly Writing: Inaccurate Or Unreliable Information?

It is amazing how much information we have at our disposal. If you think about it, the amount of information available to the general populace today has never been accessible in such great quantities. Historically speaking, information was only available to people who had power and wealth, as they were typically the literate members of society. As time marched on, more people became literate, and information became more widespread. It is now easier than ever to find and publish information, thanks to the internet. Though the internet grants access to a variety of different sources and opinions, there is a caveat to this great informational and technological advancement.

One of the reasons why information is so accessible is because anyone, regardless of credentials or lack thereof, can post, share, or like information. This helps propagate information, regardless of whether or not it is true. This phenomena is increasingly relevant, as ample scandals concerning fake news have been making headlines over the last few weeks, and the factSo where are we to turn when faced with shady, unreliable information?

The purpose of scholarly writing is to further knowledge and to add new information to the conversations within a specific field (Shannon 7). In other words, scholarly writing is a means for people to receive both highly credible and new information. What sets scholarly writing apart from any other genre -- despite what discipline it concerns -- is the quality of the information, and whether the information it presents is new, and is endorsed by other experts in the field, and like other means of communication can be influenced by social media ( Gu & Widen-Wulff 1). Since scholarly is an excellent resource of reliable and new information, it is important to understand how it is