Academic Urban Legends Ole Bjorn Rekdal Analysis

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Importance Accurate Information and Proper Citation Professor, Ole Bjorn Rekdal of Bergen University College, in his article, “Academic urban legends”, discusses the importance of proper citation to keep information accurate. Rekdal’s hope is to show how sloppy, improper citation is causing bits and pieces of information to be lost. Moreover, this causes an interpreted piece of knowledge to sometime be reused as incorrect information. Rekdal tells a fact many of us to believe true with cited evidence of its falsehood to try and persuade his academic writers of how important proper citation is. However, according to reporting intern, Charlie Tyson, in his web article, “How rumors spread via sloppy citation practices”, compares what Rekdal has …show more content…

Sune Larsson in the Journal of Internal Medicine, “The myth from the 1930s that spinach is a rich source of iron was due to misleading information in the original publication: a malpositioned decimal point gave a 10-fold overestimate of iron content” (Hamblin, 1981, cited in Larsson 1995; 448-449) (Rekdal 639). Therefore, by giving us this information that most people thought was truth Rekdal creates a connection with a large portion of his readers. Additionally it gives him write credibility that gains trust. Furthermore, he goes on to tell us that this myth that spinach is a good source of iron has gone and remained false information for more than 30 year because of inaccurate information (Rekdal 639). Rekdal goes even further to insist on checking references that are secondary sources by once again relation to his reader by describing it like the “whisper game”. Similarly using a secondary source is like when a rumor is spread and you lose pieces of information along the way (Rekdal 641). For instance, I have a dog, by the time it get around a table full of people, I have a dog who wears pink bows. Rekdal says it is the same for citing academic sources. Vidal information is lost along the way causing false information. Furthermore; to prevent lost information Rekdal talk throughout his entire article the importance of giving everyone the credit that is deserved, so that the reader can trace the thought back to the original person. Overall he shows the importance of have easily information is misconstrue and everyone has the right to be able to go and check for accurate information, thru proper

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