An expert ( Audio (US) (help·info)) is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of

technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is
accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished
domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability based
on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study. Experts are called
in for advice on their respective subject, but they do not always agree on the particulars
of a field of study. An expert can be, by virtue of credential, training, education,
profession, publication or experience, believed to have special knowledge of a subject
beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially (and legally) rely
upon the individual's opinion. Historically, an expert was referred to as a sage (Sophos).
The individual was usually a profound thinker distinguished for wisdom and sound
judgment.

Experts have a prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a

particular field. In specific fields, the definition of expert is well established by consensus
and therefore it is not necessary for an individual to have a professional or academic
qualification for them to be accepted as an expert. In this respect, a shepherd with 50
years of experience tending flocks would be widely recognized as having complete
expertise in the use and training of sheep dogs and the care of sheep. Another example
from computer science is that an expert system may be taught by a human and thereafter
considered an expert, often outperforming human beings at particular tasks. In law, an
expert witness must be recognized by argument and authority.

Look up expert in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Research in this area attempts to understand the relation between expert knowledge and
exceptional performance in terms of cognitive structures and processes. The fundamental
research endeavor is to describe what it is that experts know and how they use their
knowledge to achieve performance that most people assume requires extreme or
extraordinary ability. Studies have investigated the factors that enable experts to be fast
and accurate.[1]

Contrasts and comparisons

[edit] Associated terms

An expert differs from the specialist in that a specialist has to be able to solve a problem
and an expert has to know its solution. The opposite of an expert is generally known as a
layperson, while someone who occupies a middle grade of understanding is generally
known as a technician and often employed to assist experts. A person may well be an
expert in one field and a layperson in many other fields. The concepts of experts and
expertise are debated within the field of epistemology under the general heading of expert
knowledge. In contrast, the opposite of a specialist would be a generalist, somebody with
expertise in many fields.
The term is widely used informally, with people being described as 'experts' in order to
bolster the relative value of their opinion, when no objective criteria for their expertise is
available. The term crank is likewise used to disparage opinions. Academic elitism arises
when experts become convinced that only their opinion is useful, sometimes on matters
beyond their personal expertise.

In contrast to an expert, a novice (known colloquially as a newbie or 'greenhorn') is any

person that is new to any science or field of study or activity or social cause and who is
undergoing training in order to meet normal requirements of being regarded a mature and
equal participant.

“Expert” is also being mistakenly interchanged with the term “authority” in new media.
An expert can be an authority if through relationships to people and technology, that
expert is allowed to control access to his expertise. However, a person who merely wields
authority is not by right an expert. In new media, users are being misled by the term
“authority”. Many sites and search engines such as Google and Technorati use the term
"authority" to denote the link value and traffic to a particular topic. However, this
“authority” only measures populist information. It in no way assures that the author of
that site or blog is an expert.

See also the "expertise" section below.

[edit] Developmental characteristics

Some characteristics of the development of an expert have been found to include

• At a minimum usually 10 years of consistent practice, sometimes more for certain

fields[citation needed]
• A characterization of this practice as "deliberate practice", which forces the
practitioner to come up with new ways to encourage and enable themselves to
reach new levels of performance[citation needed]
• An early phase of learning which is characterized by enjoyment, excitement, and
participation without outcome-related goals[2]
• The ability to rearrange or construct a higher dimension of creativity. Due to such
familiarity or advanced knowledge experts can develop more abstract
perspectives of their concepts and/or performances.[citation needed]

[edit] Expertise

Look up expertise in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Expertise consists of those characteristics, skills and knowledge of a person (that is,
expert) or of a system, which distinguish experts from novices and less experienced
people. In many domains there are objective measures of performance capable of
distinguishing experts from novices: expert chess players will almost always win games
against recreational chess players; expert medical specialists are more likely to diagnose a
disease correctly; etc.

[edit] Academic views on expertise

There are broadly two academic approaches to the understanding and study of expertise.
The first understands expertise as an emergent property of communities of practice. In
this view expertise is socially constructed; tools for thinking and scripts for action are
jointly constructed within social groups enabling that group jointly to define and acquire
expertise in some domain.

In the second view expertise is a characteristic of individuals and is a consequence of the

human capacity for extensive adaptation to physical and social environments. Many
accounts of the development of expertise emphasize that it comes about through long
periods of deliberate practice. In many domains of expertise estimates of 10 years
experience[citation needed] or 10,000 hours [3]deliberate practice are common. Recent research
on expertise emphasizes the nurture side of the nature versus nurture argument.[4]

Some factors not fitting the nature-nurture dichotomy are biological but not genetic, such
as starting age, handedness, and season of birth.[5][6][7]

[edit] Historical views on expertise

In line with the socially constructed view of expertise, expertise can also be understood
as a form of power; that is, experts have the ability to influence others as a result of their
defined social status. By a similar token, a fear of experts can arise from fear of an
intellectual elite's power. In earlier periods of history, simply being able to read made one
part of an intellectual elite. The introduction of the printing press in Europe during the
fifteenth century and the diffusion of printed matter contributed to higher literacy rates
and wider access to the once-rarefied knowledge of academia. The subsequent spread of
education and learning changed society, and initiated an era of widespread education
whose elite would now instead be those who produced the written content itself for
consumption, in education and all other spheres.

Plato’s ‘Noble Lie’, albeit arguably a notion of ideological propaganda, is often where
the debate begins concerning ‘expertise’. Plato did not believe most people were clever
enough to look after their own and society’s best interest, so the few ‘clever’ people of
the world needed to lead the rest of the flock. Therefore, the idea was born that only the
elite should know the truth in its complete form and the rulers, Plato said, must tell the
people of the city ‘The Noble Lie’ to keep them passive and content, without the risk of
upheaval and unrest. Thus, the creation of an elite form of specialist and authoritative
knowledge came about.

In contemporary society, doctors and scientists, for example, are considered to be experts
in that they hold a body of dominant knowledge that is, on the whole, inaccessible to the
layman (Fuller: 2005: 141). However, this inaccessibility and perhaps even mystery that
surrounds expertise does not cause the layman to disregard the opinion of the experts on
account of the unknown. Instead, the complete opposite occurs whereby members of the
public believe in and highly value the opinion of medical professionals or of scientific
discoveries (Fuller: 2005: 144), despite not understanding it.