User:Anachronist/Reliable sources (university presses)

This is an essay on the reliability of university press books. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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This page in a nutshell: Some university press books may not be reliable due to promotion of fringe topics or obscure viewpoints published for the purpose of academic debate.

A book published by a university press may be intended for an academic audience or a lay audience. Either way, the book has likely undergone some form of peer review, which is a higher level of quality control than books published by commercial presses.^[1] However, peer review for a book does not necessarily translate to reliability. At a minimum, a book published by a university press can be considered reliable for attributing opinions to the author, but the book might be a low-quality source if those opinions are not supported by other reliable sources.

Reasons for existence

There are multiple reasons why a university press chooses to publish a book.

• To provide faculty with an outlet for publications necessary for academic tenure. Certain fields require books, not just academic journals, for this. To determine reliability, the citations the author has received, or the scholarly impact of the book, matter more than the identity of the publisher.
• A university press accepts manuscripts that align with its commitment to academic freedom by publishing diverse perspectives, even if the manuscript promotes fringe views. A university press also does not necessarily endorse the views promoted within the books it publishes.
• The university press may be convinced there is a profitable market for the book even if it is controversial.

What "peer review" means for a book

A university press has peer reviewers to review books, and an editorial board or steering committee to make decisions about what to publish. The peer reviewers are likely to be drawn from a population of experts in a university network. The peer review process for books has differences from the process used by scholarly journals, however.

Because the editorial board may not be familiar with peers in a certain field, the editors may choose reviewers from within a group selected by the author. This results in a reinforcing effect, rather than actual scholarly criticism of the work.

With a scholarly journal, peer reviewers and authors don't know one another's identities. This bidirectional anonymity typically doesn't exist during a book's peer-review; the reviewers often know the identity of the author,^[2] which can result in a favorable bias toward a reviewer's fellow colleague.

The reviewers might not review the complete manuscript. Many presses start the peer review process with nothing more than the author's proposal and one or two sample chapters.^[2] Even with a complete manuscript, books are longer than journal articles and a reviewer may not have the time to review a book as thoroughly as an article.

Even if the peer reviewers agree in their criticism, the editor may still decide to move forward with the book if the editor believes a convincing case can be made to the editorial board^[2] for one or more of the reasons listed previously. In fairness, however, reliable-source journals occasionally also publish against the recommendation of reviewers.

Examples

Here are some examples of books published by respected university presses that would not be acceptable for citing facts on Wikipedia, although they would be fine for attributing author opinions:

Oxford University Press

• Books in the Weil
  integrative medicine library, published by Oxford University Press.^[3]
  While integrative medicine (or complementary medicine) is used in the UK to enhance science-based medicine used at the same time, it is viewed by many medical professionals as pseudoscience or quackery.
• The Oxford Book of Health Foods, while containing useful information, makes credulous claims about the benefits of numerous health foods and dietary supplements, as well as making claims about the therapeutic value of herbal medicines.^[4]
• American Holocaust by David Stannard, published in 1992 by Oxford University Press. The book argues that European colonization of the Americas constituted a genocide comparable to the Holocaust. Some scholars accept the book's controversial perspectives while others reject them as sensationalist or lacking sufficient evidence.

Other university presses

• The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by cosmologists
  final anthropic principle
  , a controversial view that the universe is tuned so that the existence of "intelligent information processing" is inevitable. The book is possibly appropriate for articles on philosophy rather than science.
• Metaphysical Experiments by Bjørn Ekeberg, published by the University of Minnesota Press.^[5] This is a philosophy book about cosmology that was not reviewed by cosmologists, but by other authors on metaphysics.
• The Generalship of Muhammad: Battles and Campaigns of the Prophet of Allah by Russ Rodgers, published by the University Press of Florida.^[6] Community consensus^[7] is that the book includes extraordinary claims that demand support of multiple reliable sources, yet the author is rather obscure (more of a hobbyist historian) having been largely ignored by academia with few citations.

See also

• Wikipedia:Verifiability#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources

References