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Thinking about authority
"Authority is constructed and contextual" -- that's what academic librarians say. But what does that mean?
Mostly, it means that we make decisions about who we consider an authority on a topic in several different ways. We might ask how much a person has studied a topic, or how the things they've studied make them experts. We might ask what direct experience they have with a topic. We might ask whether they are likely to gain or lose anything based on what they say.
Some magazines provide information about authors. In other cases, you may want to try searching for the author and finding out what their credentials are.
Online magazines you can read for free (with the kind of articles you need)
- The ConversationArticles about current issues in a journalistic style, written by scholars. Lots of topics!
- VoxNews and general-interest content, mostly free. Excellent explainers.
- Knowable MagazineScience journalism -- interesting articles about current research
- NautilusMagazine of science and culture. Subscription option, but you can read some articles without.
- Hakai MagazineMagazine about coastal and ocean issues around British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in general. Stopped publishing new content in Dec 2024.
Browsing Intellectual Magazines at PCC Rock Creek
- New Yorker -- websiteUse the website to see article titles; use the database (next link) to get to full articles.
- New Yorker -- database linkUse this link to search for articles from The New Yorker.
- The Atlantic -- websiteBrowse here; for full articles, go to the database link. There are articles on the website that aren't available through the database.
- The Atlantic -- database linkSearch for articles from The Atlantic here
- The American Scholar -- websiteBrowse, read the first few paragraphs of articles here.
- The American Scholar -- databaseUse this link to find complete articles
- Harper's -- websiteHarper's will allow you to read two articles for free each month. We don't have access through our databases.
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This work by PCC Library is licensed by Portland Community College under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.- Last Updated: Mar 5, 2025 6:13 PM
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