#source checking

[neosatsuma]

Y'all help me, where's that post that's like a guide to Critical Thinking re. biased sources?? It's like, "THINK! WHO is saying this? WHO might it benefit?" etc etc.

[artisticallygay]

Always remember that UNLESS someone gives you sources on whether a user is problematic (TERF, exclusionist, etc) when they tell you you reblogged something from a person where someone else claimed they have those ideologies, always look into that user yourself

I've flat out had someone in my inbox try to warn I was reblogging something from a TERF when not only could I not find any stuff like that in their blog no matter where I looked, but their username was literally highlighted as green in Shinigami Eyes

Always source check, folks

[maverick-werewolf]

Is there anyway you can list the sources you use instead of just using,”Take my word for it?” I wanna trust your info but it’s also good to show the source like a book or a website?

There are no good websites for folklore. :)

It’s difficult (and a pain) to list sources to individual posts, especially considering I’m pulling this from a lifetime of study and a massive collection of books (the likes of which I can’t contain to one shelf). My bibliography for each post would be longer than the post itself!

But when asked, I will often list some of my favorite sources, such as I did here.

You can find a few more sources in this post, when I was asked directly for sources on werewolves having tails.

It would take... a very long time to list every source, but maybe I’ll do that sometime. It’s not a bad idea, really - I do like letting people know that I’m legitimate instead of the myth wiki or something.

If there is any particular thing you doubt, please feel free to ask me for my source(s) on whatever you like. I can gladly answer. But as I do this in my spare time, I don’t academically list each source on each post, since that would be a whole lot of work.

Good question, though! Always important to know sources are legitimate.

(my browser frelled and cut off my answer! Hope you get to see this full response, hah)

[takadasaiko]

This is why we source check.

I’m about to let my inner my inner English degree nerd loose on this post, because I feel like it’s important. While this post is geared towards fandom (the Blacklist fandom specifically), the point behind it really can be taken into every part of life when it comes to the news we accept as fact. That said, I would like to encourage everyone to check the source of an article whenever possible. You’ll find that many professional bloggers and article writers alike have their own opinions, just as we do, and sometimes that sways them to writing to their opinions. Sometimes they’re right, and sometimes their wrong, but just because a headline says it doesn’t always mean it’s true.

For example, I happened across an article that was linked here from Tumblr that said:

‘The Blacklist’ Season 4 Air Date & Spoilers: Tom And Liz Breakup; James Spader Teases More On Red And Liz’s Relationship

As an avid Keen2 shipper that has a very positive outlook after the articles that were delivered quoting the show runners, it caused me to pause. Tom and Liz break up? Well that’s something I hadn’t gotten from any of the interviews with the Jo(h)ns, so the first thing I did after crushing the swell of panic was to go to the link itself. The article is hosted on ParentHerald.com, which was the first thing that caused me to pause. Okay, not EW, not any of the other usual sites. That’s not a definite cause to toss it out, of course, but I started reading closer. 

I’m reading along and I see that it’s a piece that doesn’t appear to have directly interviewed either of the Jo(h)ns. Instead, they’re quoting an EW article that they link to in their own article. That is totally fine, not knocking it, but once again it’s something to look at as this is not strictly an interview, but more of a commentary on an interview, which leaves much more room for personal opinions.

This is the collection of lines that they seem to have gotten their headline from:

source [x] 

Okay, if that’s all you’re looking at and you don’t go back and look at the original source content, that looks bad for the Keens, because that’s the opinion that’s being pushed in this article. If you go back and look at the original quote that they’re talking about from the original interview, you’ll see that they clipped it to fit their own bias. I have that quote in full below with the bit that I’ll be comparing highlighted:

source [x]

Amazing the difference when you clip a piece of Eisendrath’s quote out of context. The article from ParentHerald.com, with the way it is clipped, seems to support their theory that they state so boldly, almost as fact, that the Keens are breaking up in S4, but if you read John’s entire quote, you see that he was referring to them (Tom and Liz) in the past tense because he was discussing what he and Jon had been looking at since the beginning of the show. The rest of the quote is very positive towards the couple and the struggles that they’ll face. 

I’m not saying this to rag on this site. To be honest, I don’t know anything about it. This is the first article I’ve come across, but the situation is not new. There’s no question that every person has their own biases, but depending how much you allow those biases to cloud your writing is what will be the deciding factor between an informative piece and an opinion piece. 

No one knows for sure what is in store for the Keens in S4 or beyond (except for the show runners, of course), but this is a perfect example on why you cannot use headlines to make blanket statements about what will happen on a show.