Phase 4

http://www.2facts.com/icof_reuters_story.aspx?Type=1&ArticleTextID=TRE7AF2K8&term=cluster+bombs

 

I would rate this article as credible for multiple reasons.  My topic requires fairly new or recently updated information, no more than three years old.  The "Cluster Bomb Funds Shrinking Under Pressure" article was published November 16, 2011 so it meets this requirement.  The article discusses how protests from Human Rights activists is affecting the business side of companies that produce cluster munitions.  It was written by Stephanie Nebehay a journalist for Thomas Reuters, the worlds largest international multimedia news agency, a title that would quickly fall away should the website prove to have inaccurate information.  She is more than qualified to write this article because, judging by previous articles she has written, she has been following Human Rights groups for quite some time, so she would have valuable insight to their side of the story that other writers may not have.  It is a .com website, but considering it is a news website and it is the largest in the world, I would be willing to overlook that.

The article also has accurate information and approaches the controversy of cluster munitions with little to no bias.  The information appears to be first hand knowledge  because there are no citations provided for sources thatmight have been used, other than quotations from interviews making it more credible than if it was second hand knowledge.  I can verify most of the information provided through other sources I have come across in researching this topic and there were no grammical or spelling errors that I could find, indicating that it was written and edited by proffesionals and they tend to be more credible than Joe Shmoe at the end of the street.  The purpose of the article appears to be solely informative will no bias or opinion interjected into it.  The home website confirms this in there About Us link by stating that the only purpose of Thomas Reuters is to inform people of world events and issues.  Nebehay gives specific instances of companies that have refused to invest in producers cluster munitions (Royal Bank of Scotland) and other facts that can be readily tested, showing that this is a factual article and not opinion based.  Overall, I would be very comfortable citing this article.

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cluster_munitions/index.html

I would rate this article as being very uncredible.  It is relevant to my topic because it discusses international legistlation that deals with cluster munitions and it was updated very recently, today in fact March 22, 2013.  However, I accessed this article on Wikipedia and they have a long history of having inaccurate information in their articles and there was no author provided.  Upon further investigation of why there was no author, I discover that Wikipedia allows anyone with internet access to edit and provide new information to their articles.  So anyone from a professional in the field to Joe Shmoe on the corner can change the information in the article.  This could result in inaccurate information and strong biased oppion throughout this article.  I could verify some of the information provided but not all of it and they did not provide evidence, examples, or events to back up their information.  Not only that, but the information they provided was an accumilation from almost 100 cited sources.  I do not have the time or desire to go through and make sure that each of those sources are credible and I have no idea how many uncited people edited and reedited the article.  Overall, I would be extremely hesitant is citing this article in a research paper.



I would say the Reuters article is more credible than the Wikipedia article.  Miss Nebehay was very proffesional in her approach, she backed up her information with examples and events and she had a very unbiased approach to the topic.  She also appeared to be an authority on Human Rights activities.  I believe the Reuters website adds to the credibility because one does not become the largest international multimedia news agency with inaccurate informantion.  The Wikipedia article, on the other hand, did not back up there information with facts that could be readily tested and because they allow anyone to edit the information in their articles, there is no way to tell if the writers are authorities on the topic or not.  There would also be no way to tell what parts of the article are accurate or not or what parts are up to date and what parts are out of date.  Between the two articles, I would be more readily to cite the Reuters article than Wikipedia's because it appears to be more credible.