Ahh Google. Something we are all familiar with, right? I'm going to assume you know the basics of this ubiquitous search engine (how to do a search, etc.), and if you do not, please contact me, and we can do a quick crash-course together.
This class will teach you a few tips and tricks to find reliable information via Google for your research. We will also discuss how to evaluate what you find on the internet: a very important skill for both IC and life!
In this class, you will learn:
What is required this week:
This week's "lecture" is a little longer; this is perhaps the topic I'm most passionate about in these classes. My discussion of how Google works begins at :032. My discussion of how to evaluate sources you find on the Internet begins at 4:20.
This link is for the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart, mentioned at 10:01.
And, as always, prefer to read? This document contains the script for the video.
This video tutorial and handout will also go through step-by-step directions of Google searching basics.
This video tutorial and handout will go through advanced tips and tricks for Google searching.
These handouts give you guidance on how to evaluate both scholarly and popular sources.
For this lesson, focus on the sections about popular sources (pages 1-2, 5-6). We'll get to scholarly sources next time.
You can also view this handout as a flow-chart (same information, but in a fun flow-chart form. Choice is yours, but be sure to read one of them):
Librarians do a great job of explaining how to evaluate things you find on the internet, but what does that look like in reality? In this video, I walk you through how I would determine if a Twitter post is true or not. In order to explain the process to you, I slow things down a bit, but in real life, sometimes evaluation takes as little as a few seconds.
In an ideal world, we'd fact-check all claims we see on the Internet. But we live in the real world and with constant post and discussions coming at you from all sides, how do you evaluate things quickly and not lose your mind? The SIFT method is a great, quick tool to help to help you sift through information you find online (and it takes longer to explain than to actually use.)
There's even a whole (free and short) eBook on it: Web Literacy for Student Factcheckers.
(As the name of this box implies, this is extra and optional content. It is not required for you to read the eBook. However, if you are interested in Internet fact-checking, especially in our age of social media, SIFT is something to be familiar with)
The SIFT Method developed by Mike Caulfield (Washington State University)