My Yahoo Survey

As I was writing my previous blog entry, a thought-provoking idea jumped into my head... I noticed that the response that was "voted" number one to the yahoo question someone had posted about whether or not they should debark their dog was submitted by someone who was sourced as a "Rescuer, vet tech, groomer, and show exhibitor of Shetland sheepdogs for 20 years" (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080718192951AAJ21lV). Clearly, this person has knowledge surrounding the topic of dogs and he argument can be trusted more than someone who responds to the question with little to no background. At least that is the way it appears since her response was voted as the "best answer" by other voters.

This goes back to what Crowley discusses in my argumentative writing textbook, and what I have talked about in previous blog entries: establishing credentials for yourself as a writer (improving your ethos), or using evidence from someone who is considered an expert on a particular subject will greatly strengthen an argument.

So I was curious if this was true, and decided to do a very small survey in which I looked at different questions posted on yahoo to determine if the answer that was chosen as the "best answer" was in most cases submitted by an "expert" on the particular subject.

Here is what I found:
The first question that came up was a boy asking if his sister might have an eating disorder (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhZZzlYfm6PmC7CiqPsUpaEjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20061105201248AAEjrpf). The "best answer" was chosen because "Whoever wrote this seems to know a lot about this subject." Although he is not sourced as a doctor, the writer appears to be an expert on the subject, or at least sounds as though he has a wealth of knowledge about eating disorders.
Although the trend seems apparent, I will give one more example, which was a question posted asking how to stop global warming (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ap5sGvWyir39YTPHPg0dAnYjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20080913172021AAKjgR6). The answer that was chosen as the best was one that was not sourced as an environmentalist or scientist, however, but in this person's "sources," he provided a link that takes us to a news web page, explaining ways to slow down global warming.

Although these are only a few examples, I think it is clear that Crowley is right in mentioning the importance of having credible sources in an argument. The argument is clearly more persuasive that way.