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Dear Jacques and All, Klaus is right. The simple answer is quality control. There is a massive literature on the history, reasons for, and objections to peer review. The system is not perfect, but it works as well as anything might do for those of us who do not accept revealed truth as the basis of science. I cannot believe that the person who asked this question has done any serious looking at authoritative sources. The place to begin is a visit to the science librarian -- your colleague should ask for the literature on peer-reviewed publishing, and the literatures of philosophy of science and knowledge production that touch on these issues. There will be several thousand peer-reviewed journal articles to choose among, along with several hundred books. The literature on academic careers, research careers, and doctoral education will also provide useful sources. There is a confusion in the second statement."I also seek a source that states that website url citations are inferior to academic joournal article citations for scholarly research." This question conflates and confuses three separate issues, the nature of scholarly or scientific content, journal publication, and delivery method. A website can deliver any content from travel ads and pornography to fully peer-reviewed scientific content. In this, the web is much like print on paper. The fact that something is cited to a web site is irrelevant. What counts is the nature of the publication available on the site. There is also a common confusion between fully peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journals made available through open access publishing and fully peer-reviewed journals only accessible through paid subscription sites. Because the Wikipedia article on "Academic Spring" does not distinguish between free archives without peer review and fully reviewed open access publishing, it is not especially helpful to people who do not already understand these issues. Simply put, fully peer-reviewed journals delivered in open access format on the web are exactly as reliable and respected as fully peer-reviewed journals delivered on paper. An example of this in our field is the International Journal of Design. This is the only design journal to be indexed in all three major scientific indices, SCI, SSCI, and AHCI. It is available free. In contrast, such leading paper-based journals as Design Studies from Elsevier or Design Issues from MIT Press are ALSO available on the web, but only to subscribers or to scholars at universities with a subscription. The problematic issue arises with all the strange and cranky web sites or projects that offer information on any number of topics. One purpose of peer review is to demonstrate the value of offerings on responsible sites. An increasing number of major open access ventures are working to make such offerings accessible. The Public Library of Science (PLOS) or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are good examples of this approach. Your colleague should be a bit careful about citing information posted on Billy Bob's Design Research Clam Shack or the G'Day Mate Happy Vegemite Research Methods Lexicon. Seriously, if your colleague wants authoritative information, he or she has to visit a librarian to go through the issues and questions -- there is so much available on these issues that we can either stop with the short answer or I'd have to write pages. Warm wishes, Ken Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design Jacques Giard passed this query on: A colleague of mine at Arizona State University asked me a question that has stumped me. Perhaps someone on the list has an answer. His question is: "I am looking for an authoritaive source that states (and hopefully gives rationale for) that the use of academic (peer-reviewed) journal articles is preferred for scholarly research. I also seek a source that states that website url citations are inferior to academic joournal article citations for scholarly research." Can anyone help? Klaus Krippendorff wrote: the answer is quite simple: quality control.