Not every idea or opinion is knowledge, therefore, there is a need to differentiate propositions by quality. There is a quality difference between well-justified knowledge and other propositions that are unjustified. According to Plato, “knowledge" represents a justified genuine belief. The usual attributes associated with " quality " are very close to being accurate, valuable and up to standards with enormous advances in the search for knowledge or the search for truth. In other words “quality” represent the extent to which knowledge is true. It may not be easy to have " quality knowledge " in areas of knowledge such as religious systems and ethics, where the truth or the real is subjective to the individual, the community and society. By tradition and practice, science has used reason, evidence (sense perception), empiricism to lay the foundation for knowledge, while religions have relied more on faith, intuition and emotion to combine knowledge of their respective religions and, at the same time, to recognize philosophy in different degrees.Essentially the accuracy and validity of knowledge determine the quality of knowledge.
The quality of knowledge in some cases is best determined by the number of people who accept it. For example in our English classes or whenever an essay is written peer review is often ruled as the academic standard. By using the natural and human sciences the quality of the essay or paper is best determined by how many people accept it. Therefore, peer review becomes an efficient manner in the scientific community to evaluate the quality of knowledge. When many people accept my essay, I become highly confident in receiving an A on my paper because my peers view my knowledge as precise. The quality of knowledge is determined best by the number of people who accept it. The counterclaim is that the number of people accepting a knowledge is a symptom of the justification of that knowledge. If more people accept my essay it is more likely that it is justified. However, because many people accept it does not inherently determine the quality of knowledge in my paper. Many examples of knowledge are accepted by many people that are in fact unjustified and proven to be untrue later on. An ancient times the Aztec empire performed human sacrifices because by sacrificing humans they were nourishing the gods and the sun would cease to rise otherwise the world would end. This was widely accepted by the Aztec empire, but now we know through science why the sun rises every day. From this idea, we can identify why a widely accepted piece of knowledge can be untrue.
The number of people accepting a piece of knowledge is a way of measuring the quality of knowledge. When people use different ways of knowing they can also evaluate the quality of knowledge in different ways. How do people measure the quality of knowledge when they use different ways of knowing? When people use emotion as a way of knowing they determine the quality of knowledge based on their personal values, priorities and their past experiences. People often evaluate the quality of knowledge in history based on their personal values. For example, Chinese people are more likely to accept to Nanjing massacre to be a correct interpretation of history due to their status as victims, where Japanese people are not to accept the Nanjing massacre to be a quality piece of knowledge and are less likely to accept the interpretation that the Nanjing incident was a massacre. This is because of their difference in personal values between the personal experiences and the priorities of the Japanese and the Chinese. We can argue that this isn't the best way of evaluating the quality of knowledge in history because it can lead to being a biased and inaccurate interpretation. Ideally, the interpretation should not be based on personal values because that can lead to biased interpretation. When language is used as a way of knowing, formality and diction of information influences how people perceive its quality. Normally if the language is more guided and formal it tends to be an indication that the knowledge is produced in a rigorous manner. For example in lab reports the papers to need to be written in a formal matter because this reflects on how people will measure its quality. The more carefully guided is the more people would perceive the knowledge to be well justified. Personally, I would say this isn't a good way of knowing because there's a correlation between the quality of knowledge and the language used however using language as a way of knowing and the formality and diction information to evaluate the quality of knowledge is a superficial way. Just because something is written in a very formal manner does not necessarily mean its well justified. In fact, well-justified knowledge can be presented in an informal way. For example in Bill Nye's show, scientific knowledge is being presented in an informal way although scientific knowledge is justified and proven with empirical data.
From society's point of view judging the quality of knowledge based on how many people accept it is often the best and most efficient way as they often lack a better way to determine whether a piece of knowledge is true. Although peer review supports a paper, it does not mean that paper is correct, but it is one of the best and most efficient ways of determining whether your paper has quality knowledge. However, we should keep in mind that just because people accept a certain piece of knowledge does not necessarily mean that it is knowledge. In the natural sciences and mathematics, empirical data is a stronger determinant of the quality of knowledge and can often contradict theories that were once considered to be true. On a more personal level, when people use different ways of knowing, they inevitably measure the quality of knowledge based on their way of knowing.