In case you missed it yesterday, I stated...

To me, corporate social responsibility is not in the hands of the corporation, but in the hands of the people. It is your duty to be a responsible consumer more so than it is the corporation's duty to be a responsible citizen.

I am of the mind that even though I think I know all I can, I still double check my own opinions. Despite the fact I'm sure we all went through some kind of critical thinking skills course in school, I would like to touch on assessing the credibility of a source.

This came from a University?

Photo credit: Bjorn de Leeuw

What I found in my research was quite shocking to me. From the Cornell Library, there is one document I am just itching to tear to shreds entitled "Critically Analyzing Information Sources."

"Respected authors are cited frequently by other scholars."

No, more like affluent and influential authors are often cited by other scholars. Can you say bandwagon?

"The more radically an author departs from the views of others in the same field, the more carefully and critically you should scrutinize his or her ideas."

Yes, I would love to wander about as a mindless zombie doing as everyone else does and thinking as everyone else thinks. That's exactly what I was born to do.

Just because something breaks from the norm doesn't mean the source should be more or less scrutinized than others, much less deemed in-credible. As a matter of fact, because this document from Cornell fit in perfectly with the norm, I completely discredited anything else they may have published and dropped that source from further research.

Cornell, I'm taking your hypocritical advice and discrediting your source due to blatant propaganda. Moving on.

General consumer opinion



The chart above from Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine April 2003 (click for larger), via the Pharma Marketing Blog, depicts general consumer opinion on credibility. Pretty self-explanatory, I think. So let's take a step back and have a look at why these numbers line up as such.

By and large, colleagues, friends, and family are trusted the most. For one, you know they are looking out for your best interests, and secondly they are not getting paid to feed you their opinion. After that it comes down to whom is getting paid by who, why they are getting paid, and how much, basically.

But is it right to trust, let's say a medical Doctor, just because he tells you he went to school for some obscene number of years to help people? According to the aforementioned theory, no. Although you are paying him to ensure your health, are you his only paycheck? Are you his largest paycheck?

You can't reach into a person's mind and read their ethics like a book - but you can follow the money trail, and accept the fact that money corrupts and can create a conflict of interest. Before you trust a source, take a good look at who is paying who, how much, for what, and what they have to do in order to keep getting paychecks.

In the spirit of transparency...

Yes I do get paid to write Audeamus. However, as evidenced by the Get Paid to Blog page from the Creative Weblogging main blog, I get $112.50 per month for 20 posts per month. And since starting in late April, I have yet to receive anything from the network requesting or demanding that I write about a certain topic, much less give a particular spin on it.

All the bloggers were reviewed a few months back, but all they wanted was a full blogroll, a bio, and a good writing voice. I have received press releases, but I do my own research. What I write here is my opinion, and although giving my opinion is encouraged by the network, they don't necessarily share my view.

Pop back in later today for Part 2.