Question everything! Don’t believe it because you found it somewhere.
===== What can I reference in my paper? =====
When you do academic work like writing a project paper, doing research, or writing an article for a journal, you must always look for the most reliable resources. Then, when you reference those resources, you will need to follow the [[citation]] style that your target audience asked for.
===== Are all sources reliable? =====
No, they are not. Not only that, a large part of the published materials on more reputable, academic journals also might end up being unreliable for various reason. Read the following article to get a sense of what I mean:
* [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9014923/ | Keep calm and carry on: moral panic, predatory publishers, peer review, and the emperor’s new clothes]]
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**Why does Science News Suck So Much?**
{{youtube>9Gn4rmQTZek?medium}}
(See the transcript of the video [[http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/06/why-does-science-news-suck-so-much.html|here]] and a discussion on the video [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31797518|here]].)
---
But all is not lost. If you can avoid predatory journals and most no-name articles found on the Internet, you will be able to find some reliable sources. Watch the following lists to stay away from some of the better-known [[https://thinkchecksubmit.org/journals/about-predatory-publishing/ | predatory]] publishers, journals, and retracted articles.
* [[https://beallslist.net/ | Potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers]]
* [[https://beallslist.net/standalone-journals/ | Potential predatory scholarly open-access journals]]
* [[http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx | The Retraction Watch Database]]
* [[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ak985WGOgGbJRJbZFanoktAN_UFeExpE/edit#gid=364865985 | Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker]]
* [[https://predatoryreports.org/home|Predatory Journals Reports]]
* [[https://learningcommons.emmanuel.edu/guide_predatorypublishing#s-lib-ctab-26948295-1|Common Signs of Predatory Publishers]] (archived [[https://web.archive.org/web/20220423180936/https://learningcommons.emmanuel.edu/guide_predatorypublishing|here]])
* [[http://flakyj.blogspot.com/ | Flaky Academic Journals]]
* [[https://www.scimagojr.com/|Scimago Journal & Country Rank]] (Freely available portal that includes journals and country scientific indicators developed from Scopus)
The following articles and web sites will help you understand what predatory publishing is:
* [[https://thinkchecksubmit.org/|Choose the right journal or publisher for your research]]
* [[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1450|Predatory journals and publishers: Characteristics and impact of academic spam to researchers in educational sciences]]
* [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7237319/|Predatory Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them]]
* [[https://www.interacademies.org/publication/predatory-practices-report-English|Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences (Full Report in English)]] (PDF is archived [[https://web.archive.org/web/20220409181258/https://www.interacademies.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/1.%20Full%20report%20-%20English%20FINAL.pdf|here]]. Same report in other languages [[https://www.interacademies.org/project/predatorypublishing|here]])
* [[https://www.ifis.org/predatory-journals|Predatory journals]]
{{youtube>G88WvDjv7n4?medium}}
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===== Examples of unacceptable references =====
Some resources are reliable and some are not. Here are a few examples of unacceptable resources that you **cannot** use inside your paper:
* Wikipedia
* Personal blog posts (e.g. *.blogspot.com, *.wordpress.org, etc.)
* Chegg, CourseHero, and similar cheating websites
* Google search as a source. It is telling the reader: my source is: “The Library!”
* Most no-name articles
===== Examples of good references =====
These are a few examples of acceptable resources. Note that an article or a book in the following lists is not necessarily true or error-free. Watch for retractions for articles and and rebuttals for published books.
* Britannica
* Encarta
* DK Encyclopedias
* [[http://en.citizendium.org/ | Citizendium.org]] citable articles ([[https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Citable_versions_of_articles|there are 154 of them so far]]) (14K+ articles)
* [[http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page | Scholarpedia]]
* [[https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Main_Page | The Encyclopedia of Mathematics]]
* [[https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ | Wolfram MathWorld]]
* [[https://www.encyclopedia.com/ | Encyclopedia.com]] (300K+ reference entries, all citable)
* [[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en | The Canadian Encyclopedia]]
* [[https://eol.org/ | Encyclopedia of Life]]
* [[https://www.iep.utm.edu/ | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]
* [[https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]
* [[https://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm | Internet Sacred Text Archive]]
* [[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEDB0051&R=EDB0051 | Gale eBooks]]
* [[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEDB0140&R=EDB0140 | Gale Directory Library]]
* [[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEDB0192&R=EDB0192 | Gale Courses]]
* [[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEDB0001&R=EDB0001 | Gale Academic OneFile]]
* Most results through [[https://scholar.google.com/ | Google Scholar]]
* ProQuest results through the home page of our college’s LMS
* Journals listed in the [[https://oaspa.org/membership/members/|Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association]]
* Journals currently indexed in the catalogue of [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog?term=currentlyindexed | National Library of Medicine]]
* All books on [[http://www.gutenberg.org/ | Project Gutenberg]] (70K+ books)
* Most published books
* All paper dictionaries and encyclopedias
* All books at [[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEDB0099&R=EDB0099 | O’Reilly]]
* All peer-reviewed papers in academic journals
* Articles from Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) [[https://www.doaj.org/ | here]]
* Articles from ACS Publications
* Articles from JSTOR
* Articles from SAGE Journals
* Articles from The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
==== Reputable news websites ====
* Ars Technica
* BBC
* CNN
* CBC
* Vancouver Sun
* Accosiated Press
* The New York Times
* The Guardian
* engadget
* The Verge
* PBS
* NASA
* phys.org
* Reuters
* The Washington Post
* Globe and Mail
* etc.
==== Reputable journals ====
* Nature
* Economist
* Harvard Business Review
* International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management (IJISSCM)
* [[https://www.sciencemag.org/ | ScienceMag.org]]
* [[https://www.quantamagazine.org/ | Quanta Magazine]]
==== Reputable organizations ====
* [[http://www.nzwc.ca/Pages/default.aspx | The National Zero Waste Council]]
* [[https://www.globalcompact.ca/ | Global Compact Network Canada]]
* [[https://www.cgiar.org/ | CGIAR]]
* [[https://www.canada.ca/en.html | Government of Canada]]
* [[https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation]]
* [[https://ec.europa.eu/info/index_en | European Commission]]