Mina George

Dr. Melina Martin

Source Comparison Essay

Monday, April 2nd 2018

Source Comparison Essay Credible vs Non Credible Sources

To conduct my research about Trump's decision to bring back psychiatric asylums in the US, I

chose two different articles that both talk about the same idea. I found an interesting article on the New

York Times, and another scholarly article that I found on Academic OneFile, on the library databases.

Both articles contain important and interesting information that will help me with my research paper,

however, it is important to know if the source is reliable or not. There are different ways to know if the

source is credible or not. The first thing is to check the author's academic credentials. In addition, the

publisher, or where the article was published is another way to check the credibility of your source. The

first article ''Trump wants More Asylums – and some psychiatrists agree'', was published on the New

York Times, the author is Benedict Carey. The second article ''Field denounces president's call for more

institutions to promote safety'' was published on Wiley online library, and the author is Valery A.

Canady. I believe Canady's article is more reliable than Carey's article because it is published on a

library database, and because she publishes weekly articles about mental health which makes her more

of an expert in this field.

Recently, president Donald Trump has decided to talk about bringing back psychiatric asylums

in the US after being closed since the 1950s. In fact, president Trump brought up this subject after the

school shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida. Many psychiatrist agree with Trump's call and

believe it will be a good step for the safety of the country. It is sad to know that many Americans suffer

from mental health disorders, and the US needs more psychiatrists to improve those disorders. I believe

that a research about this subject is important and would be very interesting because reopening those
mental health institutions will help avoiding accidents such as the different shootings that occurred in

colleges. In reality, they are most of the time happening by mentally unstable people.

The New York Times article, ''Trump wants More Asylums – and some psychiatrists agree'',

was written by Benedict Carey, a journalist and a science reporter for the New York Times. He has

academic credentials; he graduated from the University of Colorado with a mathematics degree , and

completed a one-year journalism program at Northwestern University. In addition, he has been working

as a journalist since 1997, which makes him an expert in this field. Carey also wrote three different

books for middle schoolers. The scholarly article, '' Field denounces president's call for more

institutions to promote safety'' was written by Valery A.Canady, an editor of Mental Health Weekly, a

Wiley publication providing the latest information on business trends; state funding and policy issues

and more. Even though both authors have academic credentials that makes them reliable sources, I still

believe that Canady's article is more reliable because she is specialized in publishing articles about

mental health weekly. Carey has been working for a very long time for the New York Times but

nothing shows that he is really an expert in psychiatry.

Another way that help you find out the credibility of a source is the quotations that the authors

use to support their ideas. In fact, you can convince your audience by quoting different studies or other

expert's ideas in your article. Carey quotes in his article the opinion of a medical ethicist '' When people

are going back and forth from prisons to hospitals, that’s a sign they might have benefited from longer-

term treatment options, said Dominic Sisti, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania School

of Medicine who was co-author of a 2015 paper subtitled ''Bring Back Asylums'', in the journal JAMA.

''For this really seriously mentally ill population, our resources have dried up, and I find that to be an

ethical social-justice violation'' (Trump wants More Asylums – and some psychiatrists agree, 2018).

Canady also uses quotes from Ron Honberg, a senior policy advisor for the National Alliance on

Mental Illness (NAMI). ''Honberg noted that it's important that attention be paid to the need to improve

mental health services. “It's frustrating that conversations [like this] tend to occur when something
terrible has happened,” he said.'' (Field denounces president's call for more institutions to promote

safety, 2018). In fact, I went to check Honberg's twitter posts and I found out that he was tweeting a lot

about the president's decision to bring back those asylums which makes him more reliable than

Dominic Sisti's quotes. Both articles are credible sources since they both used quotes from experts in

psychiatry and behavioral-health care, however Canady's articles is still more reliable after I made

some researches about Ron Honberg.

Furthermore, the platform where an article is published gives more credibility to your work in

addition to the author's level of expertise in a specific field, and the quotations of other experts that he

uses in his article. The New York Times is a very well-known newspaper that was founded in 1851. The

New York Times won 122 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. Wiley Online Library is one

of the largest and most authoritative collections of online journals, books, and research resources,

covering life, health, social, and physical sciences. It is difficult to compare both platforms, however

Wiley Online Library would be more reliable since it is well known for research resources.

In conclusion, I believe Canady's article is more of a credible source because she publishes

weekly articles about mental health which makes her more of an expert in this field. In addition, Wiley

Online Library publishes many articles about health, physical sciences and also known for research

resources which makes it a more reliable platform. Moreover, Carey has a good background about the

subject, however Canady uses quotations from a person that specifically talks about Trump's decision

and not only their opinion on the subject.

 Work Cited

Carey, Benedict. “Trump Wants More Asylums - and Some Psychiatrists Agree.” The New York

Times, The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2018

Canady, Valerie A. “Field Denounces President's Call for More Institutions to Promote

Safety.”Mental Health Weekly, Wiley-Blackwell, 6 Mar. 2018,

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mhw.31370.