Learning about research and information from the Covid-19 pandemic. No.3. Find the experts

Find the experts

Part of being a student is realising what you don't know, identifying what you need to know and who the best people/ authors are to learn from.

Throughout the pandemic, governments have been meeting with and taking advice from scientific experts. In the UK, at the daily Covid briefings, the representative from the Government will field medical questions, for example, to the Chief Medical Officer as he is the expert who knows about infectious diseases. Did you know that the Government even has a Database of Experts specifically for the Covid -19 pandemic? The Guardian ran an article on the 22nd March introducing the different experts advising governments around the world (if you can't see it all online search for it in our Gale FE News database). They may not be famous celebrities, but they are well-known within their field and are perhaps only now coming to the general public's attention.

However, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't use our brains. All of us and especially students need to exercise critical thinking. As we hear from the experts, we need to think about what they say. Different experts will have different opinions on the same information. They may come with bias, they may be influenced by something in their background or personality. Their subject of expertise will affect how they see something. They are still experts because they have built up a lot of knowledge/ experience in their field, but their opinion is theirs and others will differ. This is why it is best academic practice to read and use a range of experts. The government isn't consulting with just one expert about Covid-19, they are taking advice from a number and therein lies the power as all their expertise is harnessed to try and solve the problem of Covid-19.

The TED talk below discusses the use of experts in a wider context and suggests that in life it's sometimes you might not want to rely on the experts.

Finding the experts in your area of study

Like the government, you will need to go and find some credible authors who know and write about your topic.  For the expert database, Parliament are asking experts to upload their credentials so they can check them. As a student you may need to do similar checks.

Recognising the experts

• When looking for literature on your subject, you might notice that there are author names which come up a lot. They may have been mentioned by your lecturer.
• You may find certain names and works cited a lot within the literature. 
• If you search Google Scholar, you will find some authors' works are cited more often than others.
• You may find certain authors and their works listed in bibliographies at the end of useful articles and books. 
• Experts will refer to other experts they respect (even if they don't agree).

How do I test?

• Look at the blurb on the back of a book or within the book under an author profile.
• Where does the expert work? Expert academics and researchers will usually work or be linked to a University or research institute. Alternatively, they may have had a long career within a particular field.
• What projects have they worked on?
• What qualifications do they have?
• Have they written any books and have they been published by a well-known publisher?
• Do they contribute to journals?
• Are they a key member of any professional or official organisations?
• Do they have a Twitter account and if so who is following them? Do other key people mention them?
• Not all key authors will still be alive, but others may still refer often to their work.

Finally, remember that when you search the databases provided by your library service you know that the content available has been through some sort of selection process. You can also usually check if  articles have been peer-reviewed which means they have been reviewed by other experts.
Use the best information from the experts for your assignments, think/write critically about what they say and you are steps closer to getting a good degree/ qualification.