Writing Spaces 3

Critical Reading for Writing
Establishing Credibility
You’ve probably noticed that establishing credibility (ethos) is one of the 
most important things an author can do, and nearly every aspect of the es-
say—its audience awareness, organization, and content—can affect the au-
thor’s credibility. Therefore, when determining the credibility of published 
sources for your research paper, you’ll have to be thorough and focused. 
Even though you may not realize it, if you have engaged in discussions or 
written responses to assigned readings in the past, you may already have 
had plenty of practice assessing an author’s credibility. For example, take 
a look at this excerpt from Jack’s reading response. Jack is responding to 
Dorothy Allison’s essay “What Did You Expect?” that was assigned in his 
Composition I class:
I feel that Dorothy Allison is a very creative and honest writer, 
who believes in the importance of writing about the truths of 
life…she doesn’t have any qualms talking about where and how 
she was raised. Even though she is a very accomplished writer, 
Allison is very self conscious of how people perceive her. Her 
childhood seems to be the cause of her low self-esteem and inad-
equacies which are stated in her writing… I was happy to know 
that Allison decided to go with a photo shoot of her in a Laundro-
mat. This is showing that she is a down-to-earth everyday person, 
which to me is more appealing than an unrealistic Barbie doll fig-
ure that a lot of famous women try to personify. In sticking to her 
guns about not doing the powdered sugar photo shoot, Dorothy 
Allison is proving that she is not a sell out, and has moral value 
and self worth. (Jack (pseudonym). Reader Response to “What 
Did You Expect?”). 
Jack has approached this reading assignment as an active and engaged 
reader. He evaluates Allison’s credibility in the essay and uses examples 
from the text that lead him to the conclusion that “Dorothy Allison is 
a creative and honest writer.” Jack recognizes that Allison is an “accom-
plished writer” who is well-educated. He learns these facts by reading the 
introduction to the essay that included facts about Dorothy Allison, a writ-
er whom Jack was not familiar with before he read this essay. Jack takes 
this information with him as he reads the text and looks for other clues to 
Allison’s credibility as an author. Allison’s willingness to share information 
about her childhood, and her “down-to-earth” quality that she expresses 

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Assessing Source Credibility for Crafting a Well-Informed Argument
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in her writing despite her apparent fame persuades Jack that what Allison 
writes is genuine and important. 
The qualities Jack looks for in Allison’s writing to evaluate her credibil-
ity are qualities that you can use to evaluate any author’s credibility. You 
can ask yourself:
1. Who is the author? 
2. How do I know that he/she is knowledgeable about the subject?
In Jack’s case, he knows who the author is because he read the introduc-
tory material, and he believes Allison is knowledgeable about the subject 
because she writes about herself in a way that Jack perceives to be honest 
and forthright. It doesn’t hurt that Allison writes about herself, a topic that 
any reader would expect Allison to know more about than anyone else.
Determining the credibility of an author can involve more than just 
knowing the author’s credentials and whether or not they are knowledge-
able about the topic. Authors establish credibility with the way they con-
struct their arguments. If an argument is illogical or seems to be biased 
in some way, this damages the author’s credibility. One common mistake 
writers make is to represent only one side of an argument, which could 
make the audience believe that the author is either not knowledgeable 
about other possible arguments or not interested in these arguments. If an 
author is forthright about presenting a biased viewpoint, then you might 
believe the author to be more credible than one who claims to be present-
ing both sides of the story but does not.