Case Scenario: Scholarly versus Popular Resources:
There are basically two types of resources from which factual information may be pulled - either scholarly or popular resources. Popular resources refer to the books and magazines you can find at your local bookstore, as well as many sites found on the Internet. Scholarly writing is usually confined to journals or textbooks, which are harder to find in the market and are usually read by academics. Take a moment to think of some popular and scholarly resources you typically consult. With those examples in mind, consider the following: While reliable information can be found in both sources, scholarly works are considered more credible because they typically contain a multitude of references and undergo a more rigorous trial of verification, including strict publishing guidelines and a peer-review process.
For this Application, you will analyze the differences between scholarly and popular writing by reviewing an article in one of the most popular student resources, Wikipedia, and compare it to both an article retrieved from the Walden Library and content retrieved from a credible professional website.
1) Visit Wikipedia.com and search using the term accounting. After perusing the information, would you consider this to be a credible resource? Why or why not? Is it scholarly?
2) Is it ever permissible to use nonscholarly resources and why? What resources would you opt to use if you were unable to locate a peer-reviewed article? Why would you select these resources?
3) Find a site on the Internet that would be a credible resource for use in the field of accounting. Include the link and then describe why you selected this site and why it would be useful for managers. What reasoning did you use to determine the credibility of this site?
4) Retrieve a relevant accounting article from one of the management databases within the Walden Library. How could you determine if the resource that you are reviewing is biased in its information or viewpoint?