The (general… don’t get all steamed up)( unreliability of the internet has made me wonder, what sort fo guarantee is there that that which is printed in what appear to be reference tomes is legitimate?
Obviously periodicals are suspect, butwhat about encyclopedia? Textbooks? etc…
“C’mon, it’s not even tomorrow yet…” - Rupert
If you need a graphic solution, http:\ alk.to\Piglet
academic integrity
Actually, it’s a pretty good question.
Depending on your definition of quality (and your political persuasions), textbooks are generally under fire all the time. The area in which the quality suffers is more likely to be one of emphasis than actual misstatement of fact, but non-facts can make it into texts and a shift of emphasis can, in some cases, be worse than an actual error.
Math texts followed closely by texts on the hard sciences are the easiest to “keep clean” and avoid error. Texts requiring interpretation of facts are the easiest in which to find problems (social sciences, history, literature).
College texts tend to be better because college staffs tend to be allowed to purchase their own choices. (There are fewer local or state school boards attempting to remove evolution from biology texts or keep history texts so bland that they are meaningless.)
Encyclopedias get scrutinized pretty fiercely when they are published. Egregious errors tend to get widely reported, leading to a desire on the part of the editors to “get it right.” On the other hand, errors can creep in (the Britannica changed/is changing their discussion of “drawn and quartered” based on evidence that Cecil presented) and the natural biases of the editors do influence the way material is presented (the Britannica’s article on Oliver Cromwell would never pass muster in Ireland–and I was surprised at how they glossed over his atrocity-filled campaign in that country).
girlcube is basically correct, and few reference works have deliberately printed errors, however, it is still a good idea to find original sources whenever one needs to discover the complete truth about any subject.
Tom~