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Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles is one of the key persons who are responsible to the founding of modern Singapore.   He played an important role in forming a British Settlement, Singapore, in the Melaka straits despite facing rejections, such as Dutch or even resistance in London itself.   He is a controversial person even in his time. Hence there is no doubt that there are lots of information about him and founding of Singapore in the internet.   However, how do we assess these websites for its appropriateness towards scholarly research is the main objective of this essay.

According to The Sheridan Libraries an appropriate source for scholarly research would have information such as “authorship, publishing body, point of view, referral to other sources, verifiability and currency” .   In the case of internets sources, at least we could have an idea who is the author and a way to contact, such as telephone or email, to clarify the information provided in the internet or even arranged an interview.

The first source regarding Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and the founding of Singapore which I’m going to examine is taken from Wikipedia.   Let just put aside for a moment the authorship and verifiability of the passage, and for a moment assume it is what it is.   Wikipedia provides a very detailed explanation of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.   The information in Wikipedia is like a series of events that arranged chronologically.   This is by far a more interesting and captivating way for the readers.   Nonetheless, the events and points that provided by Wikipedia are also very broad.   The general impression that I gained, from Wikipedia, that summarize who Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was, was a hardworking, wise, fair, rational and both lucky and unfortunate person.   When I read the passage, I generally felt that all he had done were good things.   He was a very hardworking child, despite the early death of his father.   He was lucky enough to be hired by East India Company...