A bad source I discovered was: http://armessaoui.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/environmental-technology/
From Google this site appears as “Environment Technology<< Amine and Imran’s Weblog”. In terms of being a legitimate source, blogs should immediately put you on the alert. While some blogs may have a certain level of credibility thanks to constant citation of sources, an objective tone, or an author with prestigious qualifications in the field of his blog topic, this blog is DEFINITLEY not one of them. The blog has a personal tone to the writing and the blog posts are exceedingly short with no source citations at all. Due to the wording and tone of the writing I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a child’s blog. Nonetheless, this can be accessed through Google if you use this search engine to research and can be see with a title of “Environmental Technology”.
One atrocious source that could be barely counted as a source was http://www.eti-usa.com/, which is a website for “Environmental Technology Incorporated”. While outwardly it appears to have some relevance to my topic, (it’s even one of the first couple of websites Google brings up), it actually has nothing to do with environmental technology! It’s just a website that sells polymer coatings, adhesives, and other crafty items. Plus, the website looks slightly dodgy anyway; I wouldn't buy my polymer coatings here.
October 4, 2010 at 7:48 PM
Interesting that your example of a "bad" source is a blog. It speaks not only to information about the environment, but to virtually any topic for which someone has an opinion they wish to share. This brings to mind the next big question on how a credible blogger can separate him or herself from a "bad source" blog such as the one you cite. Given the rapid expansion of blogging, might it be past the point of no return for credible bloggers to maintain the respect they deserve? Or do you think the majority of the public can sort it all out as well as you did here?