1. What are three things about research that I learned today?
1. Web of Science: how to determine the reliability and publicity of the authors of sources.
2. Google Scholar feature–source cited–is unreliable.
3. Yochai Benkler does not have a PhD.
What is the one thing about evaluation of sources that I’m still unclear or uncertain?
Few questions I have about evaluation of sources is: Is there a number of other work citing a source making that particular source reliable? Is it that 100, 300, or 500 of other working citing a particular article makes the article substantially reliable? Is it true that the greater the number means the source more reliable?
Your question about whether a higher citation count correlates with reliability is a good one. I’d say that a higher citation count means at the very least that the article is important enough that a number of scholars working in that area felt the need to cite it and refer to it. Sometimes people cite articles that they disagree with or that they feel offer only incomplete answers. The numbers of citations are relative and not absolute. If your article is on an obscure topic that only a handful of researchers are working on, a low citation count may not be so bad in light of the small number of people in the field. If your article is on a broad topic and you’ve got a really high number (relative to similar articles), then that might indicate the article stands out in a crowded field and is indeed highly regarded.