Should students believe answers on Quora

Students go to Quora, a question-and-answer website, to find out information. Every piece of content on the website is user-generated, which means it was written, updated, and arranged by website users.

There is a wealth of knowledge available on Quora. The entire site is built on sharing and learning new information, be it through discussions or answers to queries about a subject you're interested in.

Although it is a really trustful website, still some fraud users or people who does not have the specific knowledge of a subject gives unnecessary or false answer to a question

Whether you are using Quora for research purposes or for fun, it serves no use to learn something if it turns out to be false. Fortunately, there are techniques to make sure you're not wasting your time on Quora by determining whether the answers you're receiving are reliable.

• Verify any included citations

Citations are a fantastic idea to use if you discuss a subject you want others to find credible. Make careful to focus on replies that draw from at least two different sources when you search for answers to Quora questions. As long as those sources are trustworthy in and of themselves, the more the better.

How you define what is legitimate and trustworthy can be a little bit of a rabbit hole. However, generally speaking, you can be more confident in an answer that has references from trustworthy sources supporting its assertion than one that appears to be solely based on the user providing the response.

• Check the user’s credentials

One of the reasons Quora is so helpful for developing your professional online presence is the option to add credentials to your profile. This could include your actual qualifications or your amount of experience with a certain subject. Naturally, some of a user's qualities will be more important than others. However, if you're attempting to judge the reliability of a user's response, it's still a good idea to look into their credentials.

If a user's credentials featured credentials and relevant professional expertise, you'd be more likely to believe their opinion of the greatest CPU for video editing than if it came from a random user.

• View the Response Answer of a User

If a user responds to a question in a way that seems knowledgeable and correct, you can view their answer history through their profile to determine how frequently they appear to provide beneficial answers. If all of their responses appear to be legitimate, there's a good chance that they actually want to share insightful information.

Just be careful with this one because people's knowledge and/or communication abilities can develop with time. Don't instantly assume that you may disregard a user's most recent answer if their earlier responses from months or even years ago appear to be unreliable.

• Verify the User's Intent

Because it will help them professionally, a user might respond to a query in a particular way. For example, if you're reading a query regarding the best antivirus programme and an answer appears to be legitimate but is really just endorsing a certain solution, you might want to dig into it further. You might learn from looking at their profile that they are the CEO of a brand-new antivirus software business.

The scenarios you encounter on Quora might not be quite as blatant as that, but it's a good idea to make sure that the person providing the answer doesn't appear to stand to gain either directly from it or indirectly through the organisation they work for. Their response is likely to be influenced by their own objectives, which may not be as clear to you at first glance.

• Check the answer confirmation

It is typically reasonable to trust that an answer to a question you are searching for is correct if it appears frequently. Even though the right response has already been given, users might wish to express it differently because the majority of people on Quora are trying to establish their authority. This benefits the platform and demonstrates to you the likelihood of a correct response.

In the case of subjective questions, such as ranking the finest movies, you do need to be mindful of confirmation bias. Many of the times the popular opinion is not always the right one. A consistent response to a fact-based question indicates that you can believe what you're hearing.

• Maintain Fact-Based Discussions

There's a good chance that if you're looking for reliable responses on Quora, you tend to value reality above opinion.

You won't always be able to look for questions that have a clear, objective answer because many subjects, even those that are scientific, can give rise to divergent viewpoints. In this scenario, it's important to be particular in your search terms and to limit your choices to issues that are widely discussed enough to have a clear solution.

The bottom line:

Quora is trustworthy, you just have to follow the above-mentioned steps just in case since we don’t want you to follow any false answers.