- Using the evidence you identified and paraphrased in Week 3, analyze that evidence in the context of the argument you are making.
- Additionally, reflect on the process of analyzing the evidence. Pose any questions and/or explain the challenges that came up during the process.
Week 3 Discussion
Main Idea-
.Not all articles, even those that are peer-reviewed are accurate and free of bias and that one needs to assess them to verify their credibility. Most of the papers in various fields of study are never 100% accurate. Most of them have a confidence level of 95% which means that some of the conclusions are usually incorrect. The publisher of the paper usually cannot guarantee its correctness and the peer-review system also has its imperfections (Academia, 2015). Peer-review is not evidence of correctness nor is it a guarantee of it meaning one should not believe the results of an article simply because it is peer-reviewed. Scientific papers often aim at expanding the boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, there may be factors involved which the authors, publishers, and reviewers are not aware of. Publication of an article only indicates the acceptance of an idea and is only the start of the road. Peer-review on the other hand can be described simply as checking the sanity of the paper. While peer-reviewed papers are more likely to be correct, trusting them without critically evaluating them is akin to an appeal to authority (Lose & Klarskov, 2017). Citation counts do not also guarantee the reliability of an article. Authors often cite papers uncritically simply because they want to make their theory more plausible. Also, there are instances when papers have been cited but the algorithms do not work in practice. The accuracy of published papers varies because some publishers are stricter with what they accept than others. You will come across a published article whose language is not even comprehensible (Macdonald, 2016). Even in the cases of a much-respected journal, a peer-review does not verify the results of the study.
