 So you're doing research. How do you decide who to trust and which information to accept or leave behind? Let's take a look. You're probably already an authority on something. Your friends may go to you for advice and guidelines on how to do certain things like calculus or how to make great chili. Doesn't necessarily mean that you're an expert on the subject or that everyone should trust you or you're cooking. But it does mean that your social circle has come to recognize you as the one to go to for certain things. Your friends may love your chili, but you might enter it into a competition with professional cooks and find that you've got a lot to learn. The same kind of thing goes for your academic knowledge. You might be a knowledgeable and useful tutor to your peers, but try to apply for a job as a calculus professor and you'll find your way out of your element. That's because you're trying to function in a new and different community. Systems of authority, trust, and reliability can look different in a variety of groups. Figuring out who to trust also depends on your information need. If you're writing an in-depth research paper on action movies and evolving gender roles, you'll probably need to use library databases and investigate some scholarly articles written by experts on that topic. But if you're just trying to decide if you should spend a few bucks at a movie theater, you can read reviews online, potentially written by anyone. It doesn't have to be a professor of gender studies or film criticism. But even in these simple cases, you might decide that you trust one reviewer over another. Why is that? Is it because you already agreed with their point of view? Think carefully about why you decide to trust any information and don't take anything for granted. Be flexible and open to new evidence from a variety of voices, not just those that confirm your worldview. Since this idea gets pretty complicated and we don't want you to doubt everything all the time or else you'd never get out of bed in the morning, here's some ways to figure out if information is authoritative in the academic world. Here's a short list of tips and no single question is enough to ask when you're examining information. Who's the author or creator of this information and why is this person qualified to write on this topic? Is this information peer reviewed? This means that other experts had a chance to take a closer look and offer suggestions and approval before the article or book was published. Does the author offer evidence that supports what they're telling you and is there other information out there that helps confirm this evidence? As you go through your academic career, you'll develop more expertise on a subject and you may even be recognized as an authority one day. It's your responsibility to make sure they're using the best possible information in an ethical way and connecting with your community and others in order to share your own knowledge. And that's how you inform your thinking.