7.11 The Main Part: Avoid Toxic Websites in Your References!

The Quality of Your Sources Talks Volumes About the Quality of Your Research!

Every data point, piece of information, argument, idea, or expression, in your paper that is not your own and not part of common knowledge has to be attributed to its original source! This is crucially important because you don't want to be accused of using somebody else's ideas or arguments as if they were your own. The problem of plagiarism and how to avoid it will be discussed in more detail in Module 8.

When you are working with monographs and articles in professional and academic journals, the quality of the sources depends mainly on the author(s) you are quoting, whether they have done their research properly and are attributing all ideas and arguments that are not their own. Your job is to go to the original source and to avoid secondary quotes as much as possible. For example, if a student note is using ideas or arguments from H.L.A. Hart's Concept of Law, you must not rely on the student note and use it in your own footnote but go to the original book instead. Also, the more uncommon an idea or argument seems to be, the more important it is that you check whether it reflects a widely held position or whether the author is quite alone with her views. In the latter case, you may have discovered a gem or you may have just found a wacky idea that may have been published for the sake of saying something different. If you find the idea or argument interesting although it seems to be a solitary view, do not present it as "the state of the art" or the general approach. Disclose that it is a minority view and then discuss its strengths and weaknesses to enable your readers to form their own opinions whether the idea or argument is useful or not.

In case of websites, quality concerns are more important than in case of professionally edited books and journals, although in the day and age of vanity publishers and a plethora of student edited journals, not everything that makes it into a book or journal is worth the paper it is printed on. Of course, there are also increasing numbers of high quality journals being published (only) electronically, and there are very well-prepared and carefully edited institutional websites.

Thus, there are several kinds of websites to be distinguished. On the highest level, there are websites and electronic resources like Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis, professionally edited and maybe even peer reviewed online journals, as well as materials made available systematically and professionally by institutions such as the United Nations, the US Government, the European Union, the World Bank, or the WTO. To the extent the publications are by well-qualified authors, sources such as SSRN or ResearchGate or Academia.edu are also in this category. The same is true for many but not all of the publications you may have found via Google Scholar.

On a medium level, we find websites from non-profit organizations like Amnesty International or the World Economic Forum, as well as for-profit companies like well-reputed newspapers or lawyer associations like the American Bar Association (ABA) or the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). These are generally trustworthy, although not always without a political agenda.

Finally, on the lowest level, we find all other websites that are either edited and published by smaller non-profits or for-profits or even individuals and that may even allow editorial changes to be made by pretty much anyone. Wikipedia is the obvious example, although it professes to have some qualified editors overseeing the entries by the general public. This is not always the case, however, and my own experience can illustrate the point. Over a period of months, I had made some improvements to certain sites on Wikipedia, the very idea of the "Wiki" concept. Eventually, one of their "editors" disagreed with one particular factual entry. I explained that I was a professor with actual knowledge of the relevant facts and he still disagreed, although he did not seem to have any particular knowledge or qualifications related to the subject. I did not give it much further thought but then found out that instead of just changing back or editing the particular entry, the "editor" subsequently tracked down and deleted all my changes to all other sites, regardless of subject or context. While this may have been a singular case of a particlarly petty individual, it does speak volumes about the trustworthyness or quality of such websites.

In general, it is recommended that you do not rely on websites in the third category at all and that you rely on information published in the middle category of websites only to the extent "better" sources are not available. IN NO CASE SHOULD YOU CITE LOW QUALITY WEBSITES IF BETTER SOURCES ARE EASILY AVAILABLE! To give an example, a recent paper submitted to me referred multiple times to a website called www.lawteacher.net Links to an external site. for information that could have been just as well obtained from the website of the WTO. Not only was this unprofessional, at least some of the information on the website was plain wrong.

In sum, the more different and better sources you rely on for your research, and cite correctly in your paper, the better your own research will be and look. Conversely, the fewer and lower quality sources you cite in your paper, the poorer your own writing will look, even if you have some good ideas and arguments in it.