Amanda Longo
March 15, 2012
English Comp 2
Mitchell
Why askville.com is an Un-reliable Source When writing papers for college or any type of schooling it is very difficult to find sources that are proper to use. Most professors do not want a lot of internet use because a lot of things that come out of the internet are un-reliable. When something is un-reliable there are a number of things that can make it this way. A lot of websites now are based on opinions or they can be edited by anyone viewing that page. Askville.com is a very un-reliable source because it is based on opinion, the questions are answered by more than one person, and this website is set up in a blog manner. When someone wants to know anything about anything they can type their question into askville.com and within a few hours or a couple days their question may be answered. Some people may find this great but the only problem is that it is usually that person’s opinion. The people who answered the question, “are Catholic schools better then Public Schools” were just normal people with an opinion. The answers to this question have a lot of hasty generalizations such as “all Catholic schools are selective and students must apply before enrolling” (askville). “A hasty generalization is drawing a conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence” (Winchell). So, just because a few Catholic schools require students to apply and be accepted does not mean that they all require this. The person who answered this question did not send her children to Catholic school so she does not see why it is a good idea. She just sees the rules with applying and the cost and is against it. On the other hand, another person that answered did send her children to Catholic school and she sees all the rules and requirements as good things. So when someone is trying to look up facts this would not be a good source to use because there are too many things going back and forth on the question. This question or any question on this site can be answered by more than one person. This is not good because the answers may contain ad hominem. “This means the attack on the person rather than the argument or the issue” (Winchell). Now, when someone writes a question that they need an answer to they may get many different answers. This can be good but the problem with this is that if one person does not like the answer the person before them put they might not really answer the question they may just argue with that person’s answer and this is called ad hominem. Getting answers from a lot of different people may be okay too because some answers may be actual facts that people looked up before answering. But if they are actual facts then the person will state where he or she got the information from. So if it is not cited then it probably is not a fact. A blog is a place where people can write however they are feeling on a certain day or about a certain topic. That is sort of how this website is set up and a blog is not a reliable source because the only real facts are the