FANDOM Reliability

I picked the Star Trek episode, “Charlie X” for Star Trek the original series to find a popular internet source about. The source that I found is called “FANDOM”. The link to access it is http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Charlie_X_(episode). Although, the source has a summary of the episode that is pretty accurate and breaks the episode down act by act, I do not think the source is reliable. There are references listed at the bottom of the page as well as unreferenced material. I do not think it is reliable because I cannot locate where any of the authors are of the work on the page itself. I also cannot find if the work has been scholarly peer-reviewed. For something to be reliable, it has to be peer reviewed by other scholars to make it scholarly. I think the article is more fan-based and for popularity of the Star Trek episode rather than use for academic reasons. Furthermore, the article has not been used as a reference for any other works. The website also has tabs across the top of it such as games, movies, TV, video, and wikis. There are also ads, which are generally not attached to scholarly reliable articles. I would definitely not use this website in any scholarly writing that I would have to do because it does not have authors attached to it, is not scholarly peer-reviewed, and looks like it is used as a source of income for money through the use of ads. So, in conclusion, the website is definitely not a reliable source.

One thought on “FANDOM Reliability

  1. Hi, Josie, I just want to point one thing in reference to your blog: just because something is not scholarly and not peer-reviewed does not mean that it cannot be reliable. For example, news websites are not scholarly or peer-reviewed, but wouldn’t you still consider certain ones to be reliable?

    Like

Leave a comment