What is an academic reference?

I often describe an academic reference as "one that has teeth to be able to hold onto the rigors of academia." Then, I go on to say that there are several different types of references that can fit the criteria of being an academic reference. First, almost every discipline of study produces what are called professional journals. My particular genre is psychology and counseling. We have a plethora of journals that are published with articles that are, for the most part based on empirical research and have been peer reviewed (this means that other professionals within the discipline have reviewed the writing and agree that it is solid research and writing and is worthy of being included in the journal. Second, you can use books. In today's modern age people often forget that there are some amazing books still on the shelves. It depends on what field of study you are writing on as to how books are handled as academic references. When I was a doctoral student, I was not allowed (unless there was a very strong arguable reason) to use any book in my writing that were more than seven years-old. That can be tricky as books take time to write and publish. The third area that I address with my students is the internet. The Internet is the most incredible resource of information since the movable printing press. However, a large percentage of the information that is on the Internet would not be considered academic resources. Most educational sites have solid information as the universities monitor (somewhat) the information that is placed on their sites thou this is no guarantee as a large university may have hundreds of thousands of individual pages within their .edu URL. Organizational sites (.org) may or may not have accurate information on their websites as is the case for .com's and .net's. I inform my students that when they write papers, I do go to the websites that they site and if the site is selling something, they better not use this as an academic reference. This doesn't mean that .com websites don't have wonderful information but, it is not what should be used in academic writing. The final Internet issue that is very important to address is that of Open Sources such as Wikipedia. These are wonderful places to go look for information such as how to build a birdhouse or to find out when daylight savings time is but, myself and most professors that I know (and I know many) will not accept Wikipedia or any other open source for academic writing. Why you might ask as it is an incredibly powerful site with heaps of information. The simple reason is that anyone can post anything and anyone can change anything that has been posted. That is the beauty of open source Internet sites. The world has created them and we are all invited to be experts (just as we are here on wiki.answers.com however, no one knows where the information comes from. To prove this point to my students several years ago, I created a dramatic yet completely untrue story about myself and my royal heritage and had them do Internet searches about me. They were quite surprised to find out the fascinating information about their professor and they almost bought it until the part about my Wrestling tigers with my bare hands. There are other acceptable sources for academic writing but these are the three main sources that most students use for papers. I hope that helps. Dr. Patti (The tiger wrestler)