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Information Evaluation: Evaluating Information: Facts, Opinions, and Bias

Information and tools for evaluating information for your information need; learning how to identify facts, opinions, and bias in information resources; learning what plagiarism is and how to avoid it!

Evaluating Information

Have you ever heard the expression "Don't believe everything you read?" 

 

You can't believe everything you read for several reasons:

  • The information resource may have been created by a layperson, or someone who is not an expert
  • The Information resource may have been created to sell you something-- be it a product, a political candidate, or an idea. The resource will say whatever it has to to convince you you need that product or believe in that candidate or idea
  • The resource may simply express an opinion, and make many strong statements about that opinion, but that doesn't make the information reliable.
  • The resource may blend known or confirmable facts with misinformation in order to convince you the lies are actually factual

 

One way to make sure the information you're looking at is reliable is to figure out who created it, and where did it come from. This chart shows us visually that peer-reviewed or scholarly works are the 'tip top' most reliable, credible sources to use for our research. Instructors will often specifically ask that you use peer-reviewed sources.

 

hierarchy of journal publicationsscholarly vs trade and popular pubs

Scholarly vs Trade vs Popular Publications

There are three main types of publication or 'periodical', referred to as such because they are published periodically on an established schedule (this can vary widely -- some publications come out weekly, some monthly, some quarterly (every three months), annually, etc.).

 

The three types of periodicals are scholarly (also referred to as academic or peer-reviewed journals), trade publications, and popular publications. The chart below discusses the key differences between each type to help researchers understand when it might be appropriate to utilize them.

 

 

Visually, scholarly journals are plain, with few or no pictures, a simple color palette, and are generally heftier than trade or popular publications. As mentioned in the chart, academic articles are often lengthy, meaning a journal with only ten articles could be over one hundred pages whereas a trade publication from that field may only be fifty or fewer pages long. The images you see in a peer-reviewed journal are most likely charts, tables, graphic representations of data, or images of field work directly related to the topic of the article. Scholarly articles do not contain advertisements.

 

Trade and popular publications are often bright and colorful, with eye-catching covers featuring exciting color schemes and various text sizes. Both may contain advertisements. 

Why can't I just use Google?

Google is familiar to us, easy to use, and has been a more than adequate resource for all of your day-to-day curiosities and needs....so why isn't it also the best choice when sitting down to research your topic?

Is this Fact or Opinion/Bias??

In order to tell the difference between fact and opinion, we need to know their definitions:

 

Fact: Something that can easily be confirmed through trusted sources, and is confirmable across many sources; facts are objectively true. Objective means it doesn't matter who you are or how you feel about the information: the reality of the fact doesn't change

A molecule of water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom

>>We know this is a fact because we could open any chemistry textbook and confirm it, or if we asked around, we would receive the same answer from almost everyone (not everyone remembers high school chemistry!). If you can only find 'proof'  of something in one location -- one news site, blog, talk show, podcast -- it is much more likely to be misinformation or opinion

>>Facts are also significantly less likely to use colorful language that express emotion

 

Opinion: Something that cannot be formally 'confirmed' through any resource because it is linked to individual feelings, thoughts, and experiences; put another way, opinions are subjective; when you attempt to 'confirm' an opinion, you will get many differing responses!

Cats are much better than dogs

>>This statement isn't confirmable, because everyone I ask will have a different opinion, and no two information resources will give the same response either

>>Instead of simply stating something, there is biased, subjective language: "much better". What makes one pet "much better" than another? What is "much better" to one person might be a nightmare to another, making this statement unconfirmable

>>This statement also contains cultural bias: This statement assumes a culture where animals are brought into our homes and treated as part of our family. The concept of keeping pets is not universal, so this statement cannot be universally true

Know Your Source: Bias in Media

Not all sources can be trusted to deliver information without bias.

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary Online, bias is:

a tendency to believe that some people, ideas, etc., are better than others that usually results in treating some people unfairly

 

In news media (podcasts, blogs, news shows on TV or streaming, articles, etc) is most often biased in a particular political direction. This means that the information can be worded to create a desired response from the audience, key contextual information can be left out of coverage, content may be presented by hosts showing intense emotion or with evocative visuals/audio, or resource creators may present their opinions or the opinions of political candidates as facts.

 

How can you tell if you can trust a news source?

  • Look for a code of ethics or journalistic standards statement that commits that source to delivering news in a timely, objective, and clear manner
  • See if the headlines are evocative and sensational, or merely communicate what the article will be about; an objective news source strives to simply present information without 'spin'
  • Can you find a news event presented the same way across several news agencies? If your preferred news source presents a story very differently from most other news sources, the chances are good they are presenting the information in a biased (subjective) manner
  • Are articles clearly credited? Trustworthy journalists have a readily visible byline attached to their work - their name, degrees, affiliations, awards, or certifications they may hold, and links to other work
  • Trustworthy sources may include bias statements where applicable; such statements acknowledge that the resource was created with as much objectivity as possible, under compromising circumstances such as being affiliated with the entity being reported on