By your second question, I suspect you have thought about the first
question a little already. Books, e-books, and databases generally
have a good chance of meeting a certain minimum realiability and
reputability level since they take an investment of time and money to
create and publish.
I like that books and e-books provide a systematic treatment of a
subject whereas learning on the web is typically done via finding
scattered articles and tutorials. Sometimes I feel like more effort
is put into published materials to make them thorough and easy to
understand.
In regards to your second question, I would say that a good academic
source is on that backs up statements with links to other research. A
bad academic source is one that is full of unsubstantiated opinion.
In addition, you might check well known resources such as
www.wikipedia.com, encarta.msn.com, or www.eb.com. Articles that are
linked to by a lot of other sources are more likely to be credible.
Take full advantage of Google's backward links feature to see what
links to an article. Here is an example... Just search for
link:http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Einstein.html |
