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https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/09/headline.png 227 229 0 0 pant https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-old-newspaper-articles__trashed/pant/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:21:54 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/09/pant.png 228 229 0 0 Fig7.10ConstructionCCBY https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/analyticalthinking/fig7-10constructionccby/ Tue, 15 Sep 2020 10:45:32 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/09/Fig7.10ConstructionCCBY.jpg 249 243 0 0 No Smoking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/criticalthinking/fig7-11nosmokingccby/ Tue, 15 Sep 2020 11:22:19 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/09/Fig7.11NoSmokingCCBY.jpg 255 244 0 0 image1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image1/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/10/image1.png 331 0 0 0 image2 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image2/ Mon, 26 Oct 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https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image38.jpeg 426 0 0 0 image39 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image39/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:11 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image39.jpeg 427 0 0 0 image40 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image40/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:12 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image40.png 429 0 0 0 image41 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image41/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image41.jpg 431 0 0 0 image42 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image42/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image42.png 434 0 0 0 image1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image1-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:08 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image1.png 448 0 0 0 image2-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image2-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:08 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image2-1.png 449 0 0 0 image3-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image3-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:09 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image3-1.png 450 0 0 0 image4 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image4-3/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:09 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image4.png 451 0 0 0 Appendix https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=back-matter&p=33 Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:42:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/back-matter/appendix/ 33 0 1 0 Identifying Sponsored Content https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=63 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:32:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/identifying-sponsored-content/ Figure 8 Look at the headline in the upper left corner. Are lawmakers really concerned about this insane military scope? Maybe. But note that Network World is not making this claim. Instead, the ZeroTac Tactical Scope company is making the claim: A closeup of the NetworkWorld page Figure 9 It’s an ad served from another site into this page in a way that makes it look like a story. However, sponsored content isn’t always purely an advertisement. Sometimes it provides helpful information. This piece below, for example, is an in-depth look at some current industry trends in information technology. An article in InfoWorld about advances in integrated systems. Figure 10 The source of this article is not InfoWorld, but the technology company Hewlett Packard, and the piece is written by a Vice President of Hewlett Packard, with no InfoWorld oversight. (Keep an eye out on the web for articles that have a “sponsored” indicator above or below them--they are more numerous than you might think!) You can see how this is not just an issue with political news, but will be an issue in your professional life as well. If you go to work in a technology field and portray this article to your boss as “something I read on InfoWorld”, you’re doing a grave disservice to your company. Portraying a vendor-biased perspective as a neutral InfoWorld perspective is a mistake you might come to regret.]]> 63 20 14 0 Understanding Syndication https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=69 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 04:16:29 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/understanding-syndication/ New York Times web page: New York Times webpage Figure 11 We see a set of stories on the left (“Germany’s Latest Best Seller”, “Isis Claims Responsibility”) written by New York Times staff, but also a thin column of stories in the middle of the page (“UK Stock Market Hits Record”) that are identified as being from the Associated Press. You click through to a page that’s on the New York Times site, but not by the New York Times: New York Times article Figure 12 If you are going to evaluate the source of this article, your evaluation will have little to do with the New York Times. You’re going to focus on the reporting record of the Associated Press. People get this wrong all the time. One thing that happens occasionally is that an article critical of a certain politician or policy suddenly disappears from the New York Times site, and people claim it’s a plot to rewrite the past. “Conspiracy!” they say. “They’re burying information!” they say. A ZOMG-level freakout follows. It predominately turns out that the article that disappeared is a syndicated article. Associated Press articles, for example, are displayed on the site for a few weeks, then “roll off” and disappear from the site. Why? Because the New York Times only pays the Associated Press to show them on the site for a few weeks. You’ll also occasionally see people complaining about a story from the New York Times, claiming it shows a New York “liberal bias” only to find the story was not even written by the New York Times, but by the Associated Press, Reuters, or some other syndicator. Going upstream means following a piece of content to its true source, and beginning your analysis there. Your first question when looking at a claim on a page should be “Where did this come from, and who produced it?” The answer quite often has very little to do with the website you are looking at.]]> 69 20 8 0 Tracking the Source of Viral Content https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=78 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 04:46:23 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/tracking-the-source-of-viral-content/ Blaze story, for example, clearly links to the Daily Dot piece so that anyone reading their summary is one click away from confirming it with the source. The New York Times makes apparent that the syndicated content is from the Associated Press, so checking the credibility of the source is readily available to you. This is good internet citizenship. Articles on the web that repurpose other information or artifacts should state their sources, and, if appropriate, link to them. This matters to creators, because they deserve credit for their work. But it also matters to readers who need to check the credibility of the original sources. Unfortunately, many people on the web are not good citizens. This is particularly true with material that spreads quickly as hundreds or thousands of people share it--so-called "viral" content. When that information travels around a network, people often fail to link it to sources, or hide them altogether. For example, here is an interesting claim that two million bikers are going to show up for President-elect Trump’s inauguration. Whatever your political persuasion, that would be a pretty amazing thing to see. But the source of the information, Right Alerts Polls, is not linked. Article from a cheap looking site. Figure 13 Here’s where we show our first trick. Using the Chrome web browser, select the text “Right Alerts Polls.” Then right-click your mouse (control-click on a Mac), and choose the option to search Google for the highlighted phrase. Screenshot of the result of selecting and right-clicking. Figure 14 Your computer will execute a search for “Right Alerts Polls.” (Remember this right-click/control-click action--it’s going to be the foundation of a lot of stuff we do.) To find the story, add “bikers” to the end of the search: Google search results Figure 15 We find our upstream article right at the top. Note that if you do not use Chrome, there are analogues of this method in other browsers as well. Right-clicking in Internet Explorer will allow you to search Bing, for example. If you want, you can always do this the slightly longer way by going to Google and typing in the search terms. So are we done here? Have we found the source? Nope. When we click through to the supposed source article, we find that this article doesn’t tell us where the information is coming from either. However, it does have an extended quote from one of the "Two Million Bikers" organizers: Extended quote on page, supposedly from Facebook Figure 16 So we just repeat our technique here, and select a bit of text from the quote and right-click/control-click. Our goal is to figure out where this quote came from, and searching on this small but unique piece of it should bring it close to the top of the Google results. Screenshot showing right click. Figure 17 When we search this snippet of the quote, we see that there are dozens of articles covering this story, using the the same quote and sometimes even the same headline. But one of those results is the actual Facebook page for the event, and if we want a sense of how many people are committing, then this is a place to start. Screenshot with arrows that point to the second Google result. Figure 18 This also introduces us to another helpful practice: when scanning search results, novices scan the titles. Pros scan the URLs beneath the titles, looking for clues as to which sources are best. (Be a pro!) So we go to the "Two Million Biker" Facebook event page, and take a look. How close are they to getting two million bikers to commit to this? The bikers' Facebook page with event statistics. Figure 19 Well...it looks like about 1,800. That’s nothing to sneer at--organizing is hard, and people have lives to attend to. Getting people to give up time for political activity is tough. But it’s pretty short of the “two million bikers” most of these articles were telling us were going to show up. When we get into how to rate articles on the DigiPo site as true or false, likely or unlikely, we’ll talk a bit about how to write up the evaluation of this claim. Our sense is the rating here is either “Mostly False” or “Unlikely”--there are people planning to go, that’s true, but the importance of the story was based around the scale of attendance, and all indications seem to be that attendance is shaping up to be about a tenth of one percent (0.1%) of what the other articles promised. Importantly, we would have learned none of this had we decided to evaluate the original page. We learned this by going upstream.  ]]> 78 54 2 0 Tracking the Source of Viral Photos https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=88 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 05:51:28 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/tracking-the-source-of-viral-photo/ Figure 20 OK, so what’s the story here? To get more information, I pull the textual information off the image and throw it in a Google search: Figure 21 This brings me to a YouTube video that tells me this was taken “outside a Portland, Oregon Walmart” and has been shared “hundreds of times since yesterday.” So now we search with this new information. This next result shows you why you always want to look past the first result: Figure 22 Which one of these items should I click? Again, the idea here is to get “upstream” to something that is closer to the actual event. One way to do that is to find the earliest post, and we’ll use that in a future task. But another way to get upstream is to get closer to the event in space. Think about it: who is more likely to get the facts of a local story correct, the local newspaper or a random blog? So as you scan the search results, look at the URLs. Fox 13 News has it in “trending.” AmericaNow has it in the “society” section. But the WGME link has the story in a “news/local/” directory. This is interesting, because the other site said it happened in Oregon, and here the location is clearly Maine. But this URL pattern is a strong point in the website's favor. Further indications here that it might be a good source is that we see in the blurb it mentions the name of the photographer, “Matthew Mills.” The URL plus the specificity of the information tell us this is the way to go. This takes me to what looks like the news page where it went viral, which embeds the original post. Figure 23 We see here that the downstream news report we found first had a bunch of things wrong. It wasn’t in Portland, Oregon—it was in Biddeford, which is near Portland, Maine. It hasn’t been shared “hundreds of times”--it’s been shared hundreds of thousands of times. And it was made viral by a CBS affiliate, a fact that ABC Action News in Tampa doesn’t mention at all. OK, let’s go one more step. Let’s look at the Facebook page where Matthew Mills shared it. Part of what we want to see is whether or not this was viral before CBS picked it up. I’d also like to double check that Mills is really from the Biddeford area and see if he was responsible for the shopping carts or just happened upon this scene. The news post does not link back to the original, so we search on Matthew Mills again. There, we find some news outlets mentioning the original caption by Mills: “This guy got a lesson in parking.” Figure 24 That’s not the same as the caption that the news station put up--maybe it’s what Mills originally used. We pump “'got a lesson in parking' Matthew Mills" into Facebook, and bingo, we get the original post: Figure 25 And here’s where we see something unpleasant about news organizations. They cut other news organizations out of the story, every time. So they say this has been shared hundreds of times because in order to say it has been shared hundreds of thousands of times they’d have to mention it was popularized by a CBS affiliate. So they cut CBS out of the story. This practice can make it easier to track something down to the source. News organizations work hard to find the original source if it means they can cut other news organizations out of the picture. But it also tends to distort how virality happens. The picture here did not magically become viral—it became viral largely due to the reach of WGME. Incidentally, we also find answers to other questions in the Matthew Mills version: he took the picture but didn’t arrange the carts, and he really is from Old Orchard Beach. Just because we’re extra suspicious, we throw the image into Google Images to see if maybe this is a recycled image. Sometimes people take old images and pretend the images are theirs--changing only the the supposed date and location. A Google reverse image search (see below) shows that it does not appear to be the case here, although in doing that we find out this is a very common type of viral photo called  a “parking revenge” photo. The specific technique of circling carts around a double-parked car dates back to at least 2012: Figure 26 When we click through we can see that the practice was popularized, at least to some extent, by Reddit users. See, for instance, this post from December 2012: Figure 27 So that’s it. It’s part of a parking revenge meme that dates back at least four years, and was popularized by Reddit. This particular one was shot by Matthew Mills in Biddeford, Maine, who was not the one who circled the carts. And it became viral through the reshare provided by a local Maine news station.  ]]> 88 54 3 0 Using Google Reverse Image Search https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=100 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:59:33 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-google-reverse-image-search/ Twitter is easy. Just follow the links. For instance, take the chart in this tweet from Twitter user @NinjaEconomics. Should you evaluate it it by figuring out who @NinjaEconomics is? Figure 28 Nope. Just follow that link to the source. Links are usually the last part of a tweet. If you do follow that link, the chart is there, with a bunch more information about the data behind it and how it was produced. It’s from the Atlanta Federal Reserve, and it’s the Fed--not @NinjaEconomics--that you want to evaluate. But sometimes people will post a photo that has no source, as this person does here: Figure 29 So we have questions. First, is this actually a National Geographic photographer? More importantly, is this real? Is that lava so hot that it will literally set a metal tripod on fire? That seems weird, but we’re not lava experts. There’s no link here, so we’re going to use reverse image search. If you’re using Google Chrome as a browser, put the cursor over the photo and right-click (control-click on a Mac). A “context menu” will pop up and one of the options will be “Search Google for image.” Figure 30 (For the sake of narrative simplicity we will show solutions in this text as they would be implemented in Chrome. Classes using this text are advised to use Chrome where possible. The appendix contains notes about translating these tactics to other browsers, and you can of course search the web for the Firefox and Safari corollaries.) When we reverse search this image we find a bunch of pages that contain the photo, from a variety of sites. One of the sites returned is Reddit. Reddit is a site that is famous for sharing these sorts of photos, but it also has a reputation for having a user base that is very good at spotting fake photos. Figure 31 When we go to the Reddit page we find there is an argument there over whether the photo is fake or not. But again, Reddit is not our source here--we need to go further upstream. So we click the link in the Reddit forum that says it’s real and get taken to an article where they actually talk to the photographer: Figure 32 That brings us to one of the original stories about this photo: Figure 33 Now we could stop here and just read the headline. But all good fact-checkers know that headlines lie. So we read the article down to the bottom:
For this particular shot, Singson says, “Always trying to be creative, I thought it would be pretty cool (hot!) to take a lava pic with my shoes and tripod on fire while photographing lava.”
This may be a bit pedantic, but I still don’t know if this was staged. Contrary to the headline the photographer doesn’t say lava made his shoes catch on fire. He says he wanted to take a picture of himself with his shoes on fire while standing on lava. So did his shoes catch on fire, or did he set them on fire? I do notice at the bottom of this page though that this is just a retelling of an article published elsewhere; it’s not this publication who talked to the photographer! It's a similar situation to what we saw in an earlier chapter, where the Blaze was simply retelling a story that was investigated by the Daily Dot. Figure 34 In webspeak, “via” means you learned of a story or photo from someone else. In other words, we still haven’t gotten to the source. So we lumber upstream once again, to the PetaPixel site from whence this came. When we go upstream to that site, we find an addendum on the original article:   Figure 35 So a local news outfit has confirmed the photographer did use an accelerant. The photograph was staged. Are we done now? Not quite. You know what the next step is, right? Go upstream to Hawaii News Now! So we do that. We click the link, and we find the quote is good. I like Hawaii News Now for another reason--they are a local news service, so they know a bit about lava fields. That’s probably why they asked the question no one else seemed to ask: “Is that really possible?” Finally,  let’s find out about Hawaii News Now. We start by selecting Hawaii News Now and using our Google search option: Figure 36 And what we get back is pretty promising: there’s a Google knowledge panel that comes up that tells us it’s bona fide local news program from a CBS affiliate in Hawaii. Figure 37 Honestly, you could stop there. We’ve solved this riddle. The photographer was really on hot lava, which is impressive in itself, but used some accelerant (such as lighter fluid) to set his shoes and tripod on fire. Additionally, the photo was a stunt, and not part of any naturally occurring National Geographic shoot. We’ve traced the story back to its source, found the answer, and got confirmation on the authoritative nature of the source. We’re sticklers for making absolutely sure of this, so we’re going to go upstream one more time, and click on the Wikipedia link to the article on the Google knowledge panel to make sure we aren’t missing anything. But I don’t have to make you watch that. I’ll tell you right now it will turn out fine. In this case at least.]]> 100 54 4 0 Filtering by Time and Place to Find the Original https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=111 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 19:39:57 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/filtering-by-time-and-place-to-find-the-original/ first story, and as we saw with the Hawaiian news site, local sources often have special insights into stories. There are specific tactics you can use with Google and other search engines to help you find original material more quickly. The following photo is another photo that Twitter users have identified as another “National Geographic photographer” photo. Is it? Figure 38 A Google reverse image search finds the photo, suggesting the best search term is “birds attacking people.” Figure 39 This suggestion is based on the fact that the pages where this photo shows up often contain these words: “birds attacking people.” Figure 40 We can modify that search, however. Let’s return only the older pictures. We do that by clicking the “Tools” button and then using the “Time” dropdown to select “Custom range.” This should filter out some of the posts that merely include this in slideshows. Figure 41 We pick a date in the past to see if we can filter out the newer photos. We remove the “birds attacking people” search and replace it with “bird,” since the other phrase sounds like a title for a slideshow with many of these sorts of photos in it. The original isn’t likely to be on a page like that; the slideshows come later in the viral cycle: Figure 42 Why 2009? For viral photos I usually find 2009 or 2010 a good starting point. If you don’t find any results within that parameter, then go higher, to a year like 2012. If you find too many results, then change the search to something like 2007. Here we get a much better set of results. Instead of a list of “When Birds Attack” slideshows, we get a set of results talking about this specific photo. One of the results stands out to me. Figure 43 This third result looks most promising for two reasons:
  1. The poster of the “Got too close to the hawk” result seems to know a bit more about the situation, noting “these birds are trained.”
  2. It mentions “Kazakhstan Eagle.” That’s a name of a type of bird, but it’s also a place, and if we could confirm this took place in Kazakhstan, there will be other ways to trace this back to the original. Remember--going upstream is about getting closer in time to the original, but it can also mean getting closer in space.
Luckily when we go to that page it links us in the comments to a page that has the set of shots that the photographer was taking, as well as a shot of this cameraman being attacked from another angle. Figure 44 It’s a series of photos from a hunting competition in Chengelsy Gorge, Kazakhstan. The eagle attacking him is tame and trained, but for some reason attacked him anyway. So this is real; it’s not photoshopped or staged. At the same time it’s not a National Geographic photographer. We could pursue it further if we wanted, but we’ll stop here. While this process takes some time to explain, in practice it can be done in about 90 seconds. Here’s a YouTube video that shows what this looks like in practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRqiuFt-paQ (Note that as long as you are careful with confirmation bias, you can replace the search term "bird" with a term like "fake" to find pages claiming the image is fake and see what evidence they present.) Going local is also useful for other sorts of events. Here is text from a story that ran in many right-wing blogs, under headlines such as “Teen Girls Savagely Beaten By Black Lives Matter Thugs”:
Two white teenage girls and their mother were attacked during the protests in Stockton last Friday. The young girls were transported to the hospital by police after being viciously beaten by Black Lives Matter supporters, but one of the attackers will soon face criminal charges for his role in the assault. The two teenage girls said they were viciously attacked by more than a dozen male and female protesters as they were leaving a restaurant. As they were leaving the restaurant, they were approached by a group of protesters chanting “Black Lives Matter.”
The headlines and the language used in those posts were often inflammatory and racist, but is there really a story under this? Or is the story fake? There are many ways we can investigate the story, but for a local event like this you would expect some local coverage. So to go upstream here, one option is to go local. In this case we look to see what news organizations cover the area, by typing in "stockton ca local affiliate": Figure 45 Then we go to one of those sites and look for the news, typing in "teenage girls black lives matter." Figure 46 And in doing that we find that the event did happen. But the facts, if you follow that link, are more complex than most of the tertiary coverage will convey. There’s plenty to argue about concerning the event. But by going to the local source we can start with a cleaner version of the facts. This isn’t to say that local news is always reliable, but in a sea of spin and fakery, it’s not a bad place to start for coverage and confirmation of local events.]]> 111 54 5 0 Activity: Trace Viral Photos Upstream https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=117 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 21:16:03 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/activity-trace-viral-photos-upstream/ National Geographic shoots by the same tweeter I mentioned above. I put the photos below. If you are reading this on the web, go to it. If you are reading this book in PDF form, you’ll have to go find them at the Hapgood blog to use your Google reverse image Search right-click/control-click action.

Bearing It

The first one is easy. Is this real, or fake? And are these National Geographic photographers or not? Is the bear real? Figure 47

Swan Song

This second one is a lot harder. But is this real or fake? If real, can you find the name of the photographer in the swan and his nationality? If fake, can you show a debunking of it? Figure 48

Truck Bomb

This next one is political. It was shared by a Twitter user who claimed it was a picture of an Irish Republican Army bombing. To paraphrase the poster: "This is London in 1993 after an IRA truck bomb. We didn't ban Irish people or Catholics." The poster making a comparison to recent moves to ban travel from Muslim countries in the U.S. Is this a picture of a 1993 London truck bombing? If so, how many people died and/or were injured? What was the response? Figure 49

Going Rambo

Figure 50]]> 117 54 6 0 NOTES https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/back-matter/notes__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/back-matter/notes/

 

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]]> 437 0 2 0 image5 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image5-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image5.png 452 0 0 0 image17 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image17-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image17.png 453 0 0 0 image1-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image1-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:42 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image1-1.png 456 0 0 0 image2-2 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image2-2-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:42 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image2-2.png 457 0 0 0 image3-2 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image3-2-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image3-2.png 458 0 0 0 image4-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image4-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image4-1.png 459 0 0 0 image5-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image5-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:44 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image5-1.png 460 0 0 0 image17-1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/image17-1/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:44 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2020/11/image17-1.png 461 0 0 0 StrategicIL_Cover https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/strategicil_cover/ Wed, 13 Jan 2021 12:28:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4/2021/01/StrategicIL_Cover.jpg 470 0 0 0 Cover Image https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?attachment_id=471 Wed, 13 Jan 2021 12:32:28 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?attachment_id=471 471 12 0 0 Four Moves https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/four-strategies/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 16:56:17 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/four-strategies/ things they can do to get closer to the truth. They need something I have decided to call "moves." Moves accomplish intermediate goals in the fact-checking process.  They are associated with specific tactics. Here are the four moves this guide will hinge on:
  1. Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research.
  2. Go upstream to the source: Go "upstream" to the source of the claim. Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information.
  3. Read laterally: Read laterally.[footnote]I am indebted to researcher Sam Wineburg for this language.[/footnote] Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network.
  4. Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You're likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions.
In general, you can try these moves in sequence. If you find success at any stage, your work might be done. When you encounter a claim you want to check, your first move might be to see if sites like Politifact, or Snopes, or even Wikipedia have researched the claim (Check for previous work). If you can't find previous work on the claim, start by trying to trace the claim to the source. If the claim is about research, try to find the journal the research appeared in (you can do this by looking for citations or places in the text that mentions name of researchers or publication names. If the claim is about an event, try to find the news publication in which it was originally reported (Go upstream). Maybe you get lucky and the source is something known to be reputable, such as the journal Science or the newspaper the New York Times. Again, if so, you can stop there. If not, you're going to need to read laterally, finding out more about this source you've ended up at and asking whether it is trustworthy (Read laterally). And if at any point you fail--if the source you find is not trustworthy, complex questions emerge, or the claim turns out to have multiple sub-claims--then you circle back, and start a new process. Rewrite the claim. Try a new search of fact-checking sites, or find an alternate source (Circle back).      ]]> 37 20 5 0 Building a Fact-Checking Habit by Checking Your Emotions https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/building-a-habit-by-checking-your-emotions/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 03:33:47 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/building-a-habit-by-checking-your-emotions/ Check your emotions. This isn't quite a strategy (like "go upstream") or a tactic (like using date filters to find the origin of a fact). For lack of a better word, I am calling this advice a habit.
The habit is simple. When you feel strong emotion--happiness, anger, pride, vindication--and that emotion pushes you to share a "fact" with others, STOP. Above all, these are the claims that you must fact-check.
Why should a person fact check as a habit? Answer: Because you’re already likely to check things you know are important to get right, and you’re predisposed to analyze things that put you an intellectual frame of mind. But things that make you angry or overjoyed, well… our record as humans are not good with these things. As an example, I'll cite this tweet that crossed my Twitter feed: [caption id="attachment_39" align="alignnone" width="676"]A tweet from Twitter user @RonHogan that reads “The Nazis murdered Senator Schumer’s grandmother and most of her children. Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally.” A tweet from Twitter user @RonHogan that reads “The Nazis murdered Senator Schumer’s grandmother and most of her children. Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally.” It is in response to a Donald Trump tweet. It has been retweeted over 55,000 times.[/caption] You don't need to know much of the background of this tweet to see its emotionally charged nature. President Trump had insulted Chuck Schumer, a Democratic Senator from New York, and characterized the tears that Schumer shed during a statement about refugees as "fake tears."  This tweet reminds us that that Senator Schumer's great-grandmother died at the hands of the Nazis, which could explain Schumer's emotional connection to the issue of refugees. Or does it? Do we actually know that Schumer's great-grandmother died at the hands of the Nazis? And if we are not sure this is true, should we really be retweeting it? Our normal inclination is to ignore verification needs when we react strongly to content, and researchers have found that content that causes strong emotions (both positive and negative) spreads the fastest through our social networks.[footnote]See "What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest?" by Matthew Shaer.[/footnote] Savvy activists and advocates take advantage of this flaw of ours, getting past our filters by posting material that goes straight to our hearts. Use your emotions as a reminder. Strong emotions should become a trigger for your new fact-checking habit. Every time content you want to share makes you feel rage, laughter, ridicule, or even a heartwarming buzz, spend 30 seconds fact-checking.  It will do you well.]]> 40 20 4 0 Wikipedia https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=52 Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:26:36 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/wikipedia/ Wikipedia is broadly misunderstood by faculty and students alike. While Wikipedia must be approached with caution, especially with articles that are covering contentious subjects or evolving events, it is often the best source to get a consensus viewpoint on a subject. Because the Wikipedia community has strict rules about sourcing facts to reliable sources, and because authors must adopt a neutral point of view, its articles are often the best available introduction to a subject on the web. The focus on sourcing all claims has another beneficial effect. If you can find a claim expressed in a Wikipedia article, you can almost always follow the footnote on the claim to a reliable source. Scholars, reporters, and students can all benefit from using Wikipedia to quickly find authoritative sources for claims. As an example, consider a situation where you need to source a claim that the Dallas 2016 police shooter was motivated by hatred of police officers. Wikipedia will summarize what is known about his motives and, more importantly, will source each claim, as follows:
Chief Brown said that Johnson, who was black, was upset about recent police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement, and "stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."[4][5] A friend and former coworker of Johnson's described him as "always [being] distrustful of the police."[61] Another former coworker said he seemed "very affected" by recent police shootings of black men.[64] A friend said that Johnson had anger management problems and would repeatedly watch video of the 1991 beating of Rodney King by police officers.[85] Investigators found no ties between Johnson and international terrorist or domestic extremist groups.[66]
Each footnote leads to a source that the community has deemed reliable. The article as a whole contains over 160 footnotes. If you are researching a complex question, starting with the resources and summaries provided by Wikipedia can give you a substantial running start on an issue.]]> 52 20 11 0 Go Upstream to Find the Source https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/go-upstream-to-find-the-source/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 03:57:54 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/go-upstream-to-find-the-source/  Blaze: Headline of an online article Figure 6 Is this claim true? Of course we can check the credibility of this article by considering the author, the site, and when it was last revised. We’ll do some of that, eventually. But it would be ridiculous to do it on this page. Why? Because like most news pages on the web, this one provides no original information. It’s just a rewrite of an upstream page. We see the indication of that here: Text from Daily Dot, with sentences highlighted. Figure 7 All the information here has been collected, fact-checked (we hope!), and written up by the Daily Dot. It’s what we call “reporting on reporting.” There’s no point in evaluating the Blaze’s page. So what do we do? Our first step is to go upstream. Go to the original story and evaluate it. When you get to the Daily Dot, then you can start asking questions about the site or the source. And it may be that for some of the information in the Daily Dot article you’d want to go a step further back and check their primary sources. But you have to start there, not here.]]> 58 20 7 0 Activity: Spot Sponsored Content https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=65 Sun, 12 Feb 2017 07:38:55 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/activity-spot-sponsored-content/ CNN, Buzzfeed, Washington Post, HuffPost, Brietbart, New York Times. Individually, or in groups, visit the following pages and list all sponsored content you see, tallying up the total amount on each page. Then rank the sites from most sponsored content to least.
  1. http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/russia-dossier-update/index.html
  2. http://money.cnn.com/news/
  3. http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2017/2/10/14569306/congress-shut-off-phones
  4. https://www.buzzfeed.com/tylerkingkade/laura-dunns-campus-rape-fight
  5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-gift-and-a-challenge-for-democrats-a-restive-active-and-aggressive-base/2017/02/11/e265dd44-efef-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html
  6. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yale-calhoun-college-grace-hopper_us_589f792ce4b094a129eb8a10?tiall3di&
  7. http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/02/11/japan-condemns-n-korea-missile-launch-trump-u-s-stands-behind-japan-100-percent/
  8. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/us/state-republican-leaders-move-swiftly.html?
After you've ranked the websites, answer these questions:
  1. Did the ranking surprise you at all?
  2. What do you think the quantity of sponsored content indicates about a website?
  3. How does this change your perspective on these websites' reliability?
  4. Why would some websites have more sponsored content than others?
]]> 65 54 1 0 What “Reading Laterally” Means https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-reading-laterally-means/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 21:30:27 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-reading-laterally-means/ read laterally, across many connected sites instead of digging deep into the site at hand. When you start to read a book, a journal article, or a physical newspaper,  you already know quite a bit about your source. You subscribed to the newspaper, or picked it up from a newsstand because you recognize the name. You ordered the book or purchased it from a local bookstore because it was a book you were interested in reading or it was recommended to you based on your interests. In other words, when you get to the document you need to evaluate, the process of getting there has already given you some initial bearings. The breadcrumbs of information described above is different from web reading which is more like teleportation. Even after following a source upstream, you arrive at a page, site, and author that are often all unknown to you. How do you analyze the author’s qualifications or the trustworthiness of the site? Researchers have found that most people go about this the wrong way. When confronted with a new site, they poke around the site and try to find out what the site says about itself by going to the “about page,” clicking around in onsite author biographies, or scrolling up and down the page. This is a faulty strategy for two reasons:
  1. First, if the site is untrustworthy, then what the site says about itself is most likely untrustworthy, as well.
  2. Even if the site is generally trustworthy, it is inclined to paint the most favorable picture of its expertise and credibility possible.
The solution to this is, in the words of Sam Wineburg’s Stanford research team, to [pb_glossary id="518"]read laterally[/pb_glossary]. Lateral readers don’t spend time on the page or site until they’ve first gotten their bearings by looking at what other sites and resources say about the source at which they are looking.
For example, when presented with a new site that needs to be evaluated, professional fact-checkers don’t spend much time on the site itself. Instead they get off the page and see what other authoritative sources have said about the site. They open up many tabs in their browser, piecing together different bits of information from across the web to get a better picture of the site they're investigating. Many of the questions they ask are the same as the vertical readers scrolling up and down the pages of the source they are evaluating. But unlike those readers, they realize that the truth is more likely to be found in the network of links to (and commentaries about) the site than in the site itself. Only when they’ve gotten their bearings from the rest of the network do they re-engage with the content. Lateral readers gain a better understanding as to whether to trust the facts and analysis presented to them.
[footnote]Stanford History Education Group (2020 Jan 16) Sort Fact from Fiction Online with Lateral Reading [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/SHNprb2hgzU[/footnote] You can tell lateral readers at work:
  • They have multiple tabs open.
  • They perform web searches on the author of the piece and the ownership of the site.
  • They also look at pages linking to the site, not just pages coming from it.
Lateral reading helps the reader understand both the perspective from which the site's analyses come and if the site has an editorial process or expert reputation that would allow one to accept the truth of a site's facts. We’re going to deal with the latter issue of factual reliability, while noting that lateral reading is just as important for the first issue.]]> 121 20 6 0 Evaluating a Website or Publication’s Authority https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=123 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:01:46 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/evaluating-a-website-or-publications-reliability/ Wikipedia’s guidelines for determining the reliability of publications. These guidelines were developed to help people with diametrically opposed positions argue in rational ways about the reliability of sources using common criteria. For Wikipedians, reliable sources are defined by process, aim, and expertise. I think these criteria are worth thinking about as you fact-check.

Process

Above all, a reliable source for facts should have a process in place for encouraging accuracy, verifying facts, and correcting mistakes. Note that reputation and process might be apart from issues of bias: the New York Times is thought by many to have a center-left bias, the Wall Street Journal a center-right bias, and USA Today a centrist bias. Yet fact-checkers of all political stripes are happy to be able to track a fact down to one of these publications since they have reputations for a high degree of accuracy, and issue corrections when they get facts wrong. The same thing applies to peer-reviewed publications. While there is much debate about the inherent flaws of peer review, peer review does get many eyes on data and results. Their process helps to keep many obviously flawed results out of publication. If a peer-reviewed journal has a large following of experts, that provides even more eyes on the article, and more chances to spot flaws. Since one’s reputation for research is on the line in front of one’s peers, it also provides incentives to be precise in claims and careful in analysis in a way that other forms of communication might not.

Expertise

According to Wikipedians, researchers and certain classes of professionals have expertise, and their usefulness is defined by that expertise. For example, we would expect a marine biologist to have a more informed opinion about the impact of global warming on marine life than the average person, particularly if they have done research in that area. Professional knowledge matters too: we'd expect a health inspector to have a reasonably good knowledge of health code violations, even if they are not a scholar of the area. And  while we often think researchers are more knowledgeable than professionals, this is not always the case. For a range of issues, professionals in a given area might have better insight than researchers, especially where question deal with common practice. Reporters, on the other hand, often have no domain expertise, but may write for papers that accurately summarize and convey the views of experts, professionals, and event participants. As reporters write in a niche area over many years (e.g. opioid drug policy) they may acquire expertise themselves.

Aim

Aim is defined by what the publication, author, or media source is attempting to accomplish. Aims are complex. Respected scientific journals, for example, aim for prestige within the scientific community, but must also have a business model. A site like the New York Times relies on ad revenue but is also dependent on maintaining a reputation for accuracy. One way to think about aim is to ask what incentives an article or author has to get things right. An opinion column that gets a fact or two wrong won't cause its author much trouble, whereas an article in a newspaper that gets facts wrong may damage the reputation of the reporter. On the far ends of the spectrum, a single bad or retracted article by a scientist can ruin a career, whereas an advocacy blog site can twist facts daily with no consequences. Policy think tanks, such as the Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress, are interesting hybrid cases. To maintain their funding, they must continue to promote aims that have a particular bias. At the same time, their prestige (at least for the better known ones) depends on them promoting these aims while maintaining some level of honesty. In general, you want to choose a publication that has strong incentives to get things right, as shown by both authorial intent and business model, reputational incentives, and history.  ]]> 123 17 28 0 Basic Techniques: Domain Searches, WHOIS https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=132 Sun, 12 Feb 2017 19:35:26 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/basic-techniques-domain-searches-source-checks-whois/ Web Searching a Domain The simplest and quickest way to get a sense of where a site sits in the network ecosystem is to Google search the site. Since we want to find out what other sites are saying about the site while excluding what the site says about itself, we use a special search syntax that excludes pages from the target site. For example, say we are looking  at an article in the Baltimore Gazette: See description of Figure 60a: Headline Reads: Clinton Received Debate Questions Figure 51 Is this a reputable newspaper? The site is down right now, but when it was up, a search for "baltimoregazette.com" would have returned many pages, mostly from the site itself. As noted earlier, if we don't know whether to trust a site, it doesn't make much sense to trust the story the site tells us about itself. So we use a search syntax that looks for all references to the site that are not on the site itself:
baltimoregazette.com -site:baltimoregazette.com
When we do that we get a set of results that we can scan, looking for sites we trust: See description of Figure 61a:A Google search tip demonstrating how to exclude a specific site from search results. Figure 52 These results, as we scan them, give us reason to suspect the site. Maybe we don't know "City Paper," which claims the site is fake. But we do know Snopes. When we take a look there, we find the following sentence about the Gazette:
On 21 September 2016, the Baltimore Gazette — a purveyor of fake news, not a real news outlet — published an article reporting that any “rioters” caught looting in Charlotte would permanently lose food stamps and all other government benefits...
From Snopes, that's pretty definitive. This is a fake news site. Searches like this don't always turn up Snopes or Politifact. Here's the site of the Pacific Justice Institute: Figure 53 Here, a search of Google turns up a Wikipedia article: Figure 54 That article explains that this is a conservative legal defense fund that has been named a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Maybe to you that means that nothing from this site is trustworthy; maybe to another person it simply means proceed with caution. But after a short search and two clicks, you can begin reading an article from this site with a better idea of the purpose behind it, a key ingredient of intentional reading.

Finding Out Who Runs a Site with WHOIS and Other Tools

Some smaller sites don't have reliable commentary around them. For these sites, using WHOIS to find who owns them may be a useful move. WHOIS gets you information about who is the administrator of the site domain. It can be done from your computer's command line in many cases, but here we'll show the ICANN interface, where we are searching to see who owns Mother Jones, an online news site: Figure 55 When we search on the owner, we find that:
The Foundation for National Progress is a nonprofit organization created to educate the American public by publishing Mother Jones. Mother Jones is a multiplatform news organization that conducts in-depth investigative reporting and high quality, original, explanatory journalism on major social issues, including money in politics, gun violence, economic inequality and the future of work.
(We could have found this out by other means as well, of course). Unfortunately, WHOIS blockers have dramatically reduced the value of WHOIS searches. The famous Baltimore Gazette fake news site from 2016, for example, uses a proxy service to hide revealing information. Figure 56 The owner of the site here isn't Domains by Proxy, as the record indicates. Instead, Domains by Proxy is a service, often available for a couple dollars a year, that obscures the true ownership of the site. These masking services are starting to become the norm, dramatically reducing the usefulness of WHOIS searches. That said, there is still useful information to be had here, particularly in the date the baltimoregazette.com domain was registered, which is listed here as being in mid-2015: Figure 57 If this were an established local paper, it would be fairly odd for it to have first registered the site a year ago.                  ]]> 132 17 29 0 Activity: Evaluate a Site https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=134 Sun, 12 Feb 2017 18:23:30 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/activity-evaluate-a-site/
  • http://cis.org/vaughan/...
  • http://www.al.com/news/montgomery/...
  • https://codoh.com/media/files/...
  • http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/...
  • http://www.dailykos.com/...
  • https://nsidc.org/
  • http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/...
  • http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/11...
  • http://principia-scientific.org/...
  • http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/abs/2016/05/...
  • https://www.rt.com/news/...
  • http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/...
  • http://www.naturalnews.com/...
  • http://fauxcountrynews.com/...
    • ]]>     134 17 30 0     Stupid Journal Tricks https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=136 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:32:58 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/stupid-journal-tricks/ not meant to show you how to meticulously evaluate research claims. Instead, they are meant to give you, the reader, some quick and frugal ways to decide what sorts of research can be safely passed over when you are looking for a reliable source. We take as our premise that information is abundant and time is scarce. As such, it's better to err on the side of moving onto the next article than to invest time in an article that displays warning signs regarding either expertise or accuracy.]]> 136 17 31 0 Using Google Scholar to Check Author Expertise https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=141 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:57:07 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-google-scholar-to-check-author-expertise/ Google Scholar (not the general page) and type in his name. google scholar search results for david bann We see a couple things here. First, he has a history of publishing in this area of lifespan obesity patterns. At the bottom of each result we see how many times each article he is associated with is cited. These aren’t amazing numbers, but for a niche area they are a healthy citation rate. Many articles published aren’t cited at all, and here at least one work of his has over 100 citations. Additionally if we scan down that right side column we see some names we might recognize--the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and another PLOS article. Keep in mind that we are looking for expertise in the area of the claim. These are great credentials for talking about obesity. They are not great credentials for talking about opiate addiction. But right now we care about obesity, so that's OK. By point of comparison, we can look at a publication in Europhysics News that attacks the standard view of the 9/11 World Trade Center collapse. We see this represented in this story on popular alternative news and conspiracy site AnonHQ: The journal cited is Europhysics News, and when we look it up in Google we find no impact factor at all. In fact, a short investigation of the journal reveals it is not a peer-reviewed journal, but a magazine associated with the European Physics Society. The author here is either lying, or does not understand the difference between a scientific journal and a scientific organization’s magazine. So much for the source. But what about the authors? Do they have a variety of papers on the mathematical modeling of building demolitions? If you punch the names into Google Scholar, you’ll find that at least one of the authors does have some modelling experience on architectural stresses, although most of his published work was from years ago. What do we make of this? It’s fair to say that the article here was not peer-reviewed and shouldn’t be treated as a substantial contribution to the body of research on the 9/11 collapse. The headline of the blog article that brought us here is wrong, as is their claim that a European Scientific Journal concluded 9/11 was a controlled demolition. That’s flat out false. But it’s worthwhile to note that at least one of the people writing this paper does have some expertise in a related field. We’re left with that question of “What does generally mean?” in the phrase “Experts generally agree on X.” What should we do with this article? Well, it’s an article published in a non-peer-reviewed journal by an expert who published a number of other respected articles (though quite a long time ago, in one case). To an expert, that definitely could be interesting. To a novice looking for the majority and significant minority views of the field, it’s probably not the best source.]]> 141 17 32 0 Finding High Quality Secondary Sources https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=149 Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:53:42 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-high-quality-secondary-sources/ Figure 67 What we don’t want here is a random article. We’re not an expert and we don’t want to have to guess at the weights to give individual research. We want a summary. And as we scan the results we see a “risk fact-sheet” from the National Cancer Institute. In general, domain suffixes (com/org/net/etc) don’t mean anything, but “.gov” domains are strictly regulated, so we know this is from the (U.S.) federal government. A fact sheet is a summary, which is what we want, so we click through. This page doesn’t mince words:
    Based on extensive reviews of research studies, there is a strong scientific consensus of an association between alcohol drinking and several types of cancer (1, 2). In its Report on Carcinogens, the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services lists consumption of alcoholic beverages as a known human carcinogen. The research evidence indicates that the more alcohol a person drinks—particularly the more alcohol a person drinks regularly over time—the higher his or her risk of developing an alcohol-associated cancer. Based on data from 2009, an estimated 3.5 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States (about 19,500 deaths) were alcohol related (3).
    With the “.gov” extension, this page is pretty likely to be linked to the NIH. But just in case, we Google search the site to see who runs it and what their reputation is. Figure 68 Since we’re reading laterally, let’s click on the link five results down to see what the NIH says about the National Cancer Institute. Again, we’re just sanity checking our impression that this is an authoritative body of the NIH. Here’s its blurb from the fifth result down:
    The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of 11 agencies that compose the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The NCI, established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, is the Federal Government's principal agency for cancer research and training.
    As always, we glance up to the web address and make sure we are really getting this information from the NIH. We are. If we were a researcher, we would sort through more of this. We might review individual articles or make sure that some more out-of-the-mainstream views are not being ignored. Such an effort would take a deep background and understanding of the underlying issues. But we’re not researchers. We’re just people looking to find out if our rationalization for those two after-work drinks is maybe a bit bogus. And on that level, it’s not looking particularly good for us. We have a major review of the evidence in a major journal stating there’s really no safe level of drinking when it comes to cancer, and we have the NIH--one of the most trusted sources of health information in the U.S. (and not exactly a fad-chaser) telling us in an FAQ that there is a strong consensus that alcohol consumption predicts cancer.]]>     149 17 33 0     Choosing Your Experts First https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=151 Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:02:01 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/choosing-your-experts-first/ Washington Post article isn’t the newest version of “eating grapefruit will make you thinner.” It’s not even “Nutrasweet may make you fat,” which is an interesting finding, but a point around which there is no consensus. Instead “small amounts of daily alcohol increase cancer risk” represents a real emerging consensus in the research, and from our review we find it’s not even a particularly new trend. The consensus emerged some time ago (the NIH FAQ dates back to 2010); it’s just been poorly communicated to the public.]]> 151 17 34 0 Evaluating News Sources https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=153 Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:06:31 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/evaluating-news-sources/
  • News gathering, where news organizations do investigative work--calling sources, researching public documents, and checking and publishing facts (e.g. getting the facts of Bernie Sanders involvement in the passage of several bills)
  • News analysis, which takes those facts and strings them into a larger narrative, such as “Senator Sanders an effective legislator behind the scenes” or “Senator Sanders largely ineffective Senator behind the scenes.”
    • Most newspaper articles are not lists of facts, which means that outfits like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times do both news gathering and news analysis in stories. What has been lost in the dismissal of the New York Times as liberal and the Wall Street Journal as conservative is that these are primarily biases of the news analysis portion of what they do. To the extent the bias exists, it’s in what they choose to cover, to whom they choose to talk, and what they imply in the way they arrange those facts they collect. The news gathering piece is affected by this, but in many ways largely separate, and the reputation for fact checking is largely separate as well. MSNBC, for example, has a liberal slant to its news, but a smart liberal would be more likely to trust a fact in the Wall Street Journal than a fact uttered on MSNBC because the Wall Street Journal has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that MSNBC does not. The same holds true for someone looking at the New York Observer vs. the New York Times. Even if you like the perspective of the Observer, if you were asked to bet on the accuracy of two pieces--one from the Observer and one from the Times--you could make a lot of money betting on the Times. Narratives are a different matter. You may like the narrative of MSNBC or the Observer--or even find it more in line with reality. You might rely on them for insight. But if you are looking to validate a fact, the question you want to ask is not always “What is the bias of this publication?” but rather, “What is this publication’s record with concern to accuracy?”]]>     153 17 35 0     National Newspapers of Record https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=157 Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:21:50 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/national-newspapers-of-record/ New York Times from its rivals. At the same time, it captures an aspiration that is not common across many publications in a country. When I wrote code for Newsbank's Historical Paper Archive, we took the idea of Newspapers of Record seriously even on a local level. With the mess of paper startups and failures in the 1800s, understanding what was reliable was key. Which of that multitude of papers was likely to make the best go at covering all matters of local importance? [/footnote] "National newspapers of record" are distinguished in two ways:
    1. They are rigorous, showing attention to detail and having accountability in their editorial processes.
    2. They have a truly national view and attempt to be the best possible record of what happened in the nation (not just a region) on a given day.
    The United States is considered by some to have at least four national newspapers of record:
    • The New York Times
    • The Wall Street Journal
    • The Los Angeles Times
    • The Washington Post
    You could add in the Boston Globe, Miami Herald, or Chicago Tribune. Or subtract the LA Times or Washington Post. These lists are meant to be starting points, indicating that a given publication has a greater reputation and reach than, say, the Clinton Daily Item. Some other English-language newspapers of record:
    • The Times (UK)
    • The Daily Telegraph (UK)
    • The Irish Times (Ireland)
    • The Times of India (India)
    • New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
    • Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
    • The Age (Australia)
    • The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    Does that mean these papers are the arbiters of truth? Nope. Where there are disagreements between these papers and other reputable sources, it could be worth investigating. As an example, in the run up to the Iraq War, the Knight Ridder news agency was in general a far more reliable news source on issues of faulty intelligence than the New York Times. In fact, reporting from the New York Times back then was particularly bad, and many have pointed to one reporter in particular, Judith Miller, who was far too credulous in repeating information fed to her by war hawks. Had you relied on just the New York Times for your information on these issues, you would have been misinformed. There is much to be said about failings such as this, and it is certainly the case that high profile failings such as these have eroded faith in the press more generally, and, for some, created the impression that there really is no difference between the New York Times, the Springfield Herald, and your neighbor’s political Facebook page. This is, to say the least, overcompensation. We rely on major papers to tell us the truth, and rely on them to allocate resources to investigate and present that truth with an accuracy hard to match on a smaller budget. When they fail, as we saw with Iraq, horrible things can happen. But that is as much a testament to how much we rely on these publications to inform our discourse as it is a statement on their reliability. A literate fact-checker does not take what is said in newspapers of record as truth. But, likewise, any person who doesn't recognize the New York Times or Sydney Morning Herald as more than your average newspaper is going to be less than efficient at evaluating information. Learn to recognize the major newspapers in countries whose news you follow to assess information more quickly.  ]]>     157 17 37 0     Activity: Verify a Twitter Account https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=171 Sat, 18 Feb 2017 16:49:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/activity-verify-a-twitter-account/ Kellogg's Rant General Kellogg was promoted by President Trump as acting head of the National Security Council on February 13, 2017.  Is this Twitter account his? https://twitter.com/GenKeithKellogg/status/832825494009638912 Explain your reasons.  ]]> 171 20 16 0 Finding Out Who Owns a Domain https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=213 Sat, 11 Feb 2017 22:49:23 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-out-who-owns-a-server/ WHOIS    . Unfortunately, things got more complicated. People who had their email addresses and names in the "domain phonebook" would get spam email, or the information displayed on the registry would be used to try to hack their site. And many people--for example, political dissidents--had good reason to not reveal their names. So, a lot of the "registrars" (the people who you buy your domain name from) started offering masking services, which hide the owner of the domain. Nowadays, if you want to find out who owns a domain, WHOIS-type services are a good first stop, even though they will usually fail for smaller sites. To look up domain ownership, we recommend a tool called Domain Dossier. Go to the site and type in your root URL and check all the checkboxes: Domain Dossier search bar with “coca-cola.com” typed in and a list of databases it searches with boxes next to them you click to include results from. When the identity is not masked, you'll be able to see the owner of the domain. The first place to look is "Registrant Name" and "Registrant Organization": Domain Dossier results for the search on “coca-cola.com” in which the registrant’s name, organization, street, and city are all available for public access. Occasionally, you may not get a useful name from the record, but the address might be telling. If the name is masked in Domain Dossier, you'll get a record that looks like this: Figure 111 You may also see the name of a masking service, such as "Domains by Proxy": Figure 112 In this case, the registrant is not from Arizona and not named "Domains by Proxy"--that is just the masking service. Again, it's important to note that masking is common enough these days that it shouldn't cause suspicion. While domain owners can hide their names, they cannot hide the date the domain was registered. As we'll discuss in another chapter, this is often useful information. By looking at the domain registration date, you can often get a sense of whether a site has a long history behind it or if it has been spun up for a specific purpose.        ]]> 213 20 12 0 The Importance of Media Literacy https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=259 Thu, 28 Dec 2017 23:10:39 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/the-importance-of-media-literacy/ Media literacy is a crucial skill all media consumers must have. There are many factors that can change how we interpret media, and how media affects us, and there are a few main skills that can aid consumers in being more media literate like willingness to try, and having an ability to distinguish reactions. Understanding the differences between mediated and non-mediated media and their implications is also important to media literacy.

    Defining Media Literacy  

    Media literacy is the method of dissecting media content in order to critically analyze it. To do this, it is essential to look at media content’s underlying messages, its ownership and regulation, as well as how it is presented. This is not an easy process, and has no stopping point. It is necessary to always question what is shown in mediated communications (Pavlik and McIntosh, 46). We often are passive in our roles in mass communications. We forget to question what our responsibilities are as consumers (Baran, 21). We look at violent televisions shows and criticize how they promote and romanticize violent behaviors, but we never miss an episode, telling producers we support the content. Culture is created through media (Baran, 21), and if we continue to tune in, we are allowing issues within our culture to persist. By being subject to passive consumption or Stanley Baran's "third-person effect", we release all control we have over culture.
    Stanley Baran, in the Introduction to Mass Communication, speaks of a term he calls "third-person effect". This encompasses the idea that as consumers we believe media affects others but not ourselves (24).  Being media literate allows us to see that this is untrue and media does in fact have underlying messages that affect us. By understanding those messages, we can change how it affects us.  Media literacy is so important to consumers because it can help us to control our actions in response to media, and allow it to have less control over our views (Pavlik and McIntosh, 46). By asking questions like, "Who paid for this?", "What point are they trying to make", or even things like "What are they getting out of this?" consumers are able to get a better picture of the subliminal messages, and their influence (Rosenwald, 97).
    There are many factors that frame media content including political factors, social factors and economic factors (Pavlik and McIntosh, 47).  It's important to become a critic when it comes to media forms; we must question all aspects of its production, and presentation to fully grasp its repercussions. By developing media literacy skills consumers can better assess the content they are receiving.

    Media Literacy Skills 

    Today, we are living in what is known as the Digital Age and the only constant is that it will continue to develop and expand for future generations. It is important for everyone to develop and expand along with the media, in order to properly understand what is being circulated. For this to happen, we need to develop media literacy skills. It's crucial for this to be taught to school age children, especially now with more children being exposed to media at a younger age. Today, children are being introduced to media even before their formal educations (Hopkins, 24). Media literacy skills are crucial for, “developing knowledge about the social, political, and economic forces that influence media content” (Pavlik and McIntosh, 40). These skills will help in keeping the mind active when looking at different media platforms, instead of keeping a passive mind.
    There are seven main media literacy skills (Baran, 24). The first is “the ability and willingness to make an effort to understand content, to pay attention and filter out noise” (Baran, 24). This means consumers should distinguish the points an article is trying to make and ignore factors that could influence their thinking. Thus, changing the way we consume media. An example could be when you are listening to the radio while driving. What is your main focus, the radio or driving? Hopefully driving, but this means you could misinterpret what’s on the radio. By realizing what factors affect your interpretation, you can be more mindful of when content you are absorbing.
    Second is, “having an understanding of, and respect for, the power of media messages” (Baran, 24). There's so much media content in circulation and it’s important to understand how many people the content is available for. It is imperative not dismiss that fact, because it can be very powerful. For example, some articles can convey stereotypes. If we dismiss that, it hurts the group being stereotyped and other marginalized groups. It is important that we recognize and stand up against it.
    Third, the “ability to distinguish emotional from reasoned reactions when responding to content and act accordingly” (Baran, 24). Sometimes, we connect with certain media like songs and books because we can relate to them on an emotional level. But, it’s important to keep in mind that content like this may not always be true, despite our emotional ties with it.
    Some media content may be trying to persuade you by keying into your emotional reactions; it's essential to keep this in mind when analyzing media messages.
    Fourth, is the “development of heightened expectations of media content” (Baran, 24). This is referring to viral videos or articles on the internet that are the “most viewed” or “top ten” that we settle on and give meaning to, when we are not searching for anything specific. Today, on the internet there is so much content to filter through that we tend to scroll through it mindlessly, not looking for underlying messages, or meaning. When on the internet if there is not a specific thing you're looking for, it's easy to give meaning to the random content you fall upon.
    Next, is “the knowledge of genre conventions and the recognition of their mixing” (Baran, 24-25). This means to its necessary to understand different genres and how information is given by those sources. For example, we are more likely to believe a documentary about weight loss, then what’s in a magazine for weight loss. By being aware of that fact you can determine what is true and what is not, or if the source is reputable.
    Sixth, is “the ability to think critically about media messages” (Baran, 25). This means not everything you read on the internet will be true, even if it comes from a credible source. For example, if Fox News presented an article it’s important to remember that they are being paid by people who believe the same things, so their media will be biased to whom they are getting paid from to support those views.
    Seventh is “the knowledge of the internal language of various media and the ability to understand its effects” (Baran, 25). This comes down to understanding how media is produced; to pay attention to camera angles, lighting, text sizes, and location. Understanding this language will help you deceiver through media. As the media continues to grow, it continues to matter.
    In today’s world the media is constantly around us. We are always interacting with mass media, so it's essential to learn from our experiences with it. John Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh in their book Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass Communication explain that we learn topics such as math and history in school, but not media literacy (45). They bring up the question; if we are interacting with the media so much, why are we not learning about it? Media literacy encourages thinking for ourselves, and questioning what is being told to us. Media literacy “emphasizes the skills and knowledge needed to be effective in the increasingly social media environment” (Hobbs and Jensen, 5). We are introduced to media at an increasingly younger age, so we should start learning about media and its underlying messages sooner.  Our society has a “culture that absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media....” (Hobbs and Jensen, 5); we thrive off of media, and because of this media literacy skills are so important.

    Mediated and Non-Mediated Communication  

    Communication connects the world and makes all things possible. To differentiate between mediated and non-mediated communication, as a whole, is simple but when it is looked at on a larger scale, the lines become blurred. The word mediated has multiple definitions one of which being to effect (a result) or convey (a message) (Pavlick and McIntosh, 47). Through this we land on the working definitions mediated and non-mediated communication.
    Non-mediated communication is any communication that occurs directly between one party and another through face-to-face interaction. This means that a conversation had, between a professor and her student at her desk after class, is an example of non-mediated communication (Pavlick and McIntosh, 47). There is no program helping to make that conversation between the professor and her student possible.
    Mediated communication differs from non-mediated in that it requires some sort of outside influence in order to occur. When two girls are having a conversation with each other via tweets sent back and forth to one another on Twitter, it is a form of mediated communication. It is mediated because the two girls actively logged onto Twitter and typed their message using the program. Another example of mediated communication is when two parties interact with one another on Skype or Facetime. Both of these programs allow for video chatting which is a form of face-to-face communication but because the individuals are still using a video chatting program, it is a form of mediated communication (Pavlick and McIntosh, 48). By knowing the difference between these two forms consumers can realize that media literacy is important when dealing with mediated communications, and less with non-mediated. Using media literacy skills can aid consumers in better analyzing the messages that do come from mediated communications.
    The use of technology has become more common in today’s age. Whether it’s in an office or in a classroom, the use of technological devices like computers play an important role in our lives. Studies have shown that computer mediated communication leads to several negative outcomes such as “depersonalization, impoliteness, information overload, and increased worker stress due to having to respond quickly” (Bob and Sooknanan, 47). When communication is face to face you are able to use your body language or other cues. Mediated communication does not allow you to use these cues but has created a different environment in communication, possibly altering what the media content is communicating.
    To be media literate it is important to be able to interpret and analyze media information. If an individual is unable to decipher between what is true and untrue, mediated and non-mediated, then they will have a much more difficult time navigating media effectively. Being media literate is essential for the media consumer and it is important that everyone take notice of their media literacy.

    Works Cited 

    Baran, Stanley J. “Mass Communication, Culture and Media Literacy.” Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture, McGraw-Hill Education, 2015, pp. 4–26.
    Bob, K. and Sooknanan, P. “The Impact of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) on Productivity and Efficiency in Organizations: A Case Study of an Electrical Company in Trinidad and Tobago.” Advances in Journalism and Communication, vol.2, no.2, pp. 46-51.
    Hobbs, R & Jensen, A. (2009). "The Past, Present, and Future of Media Literacy Education". Journal of Media Literacy Education 1, 1 - 11.
    Hopkins, Liza, et al. "Books, Bytes and Brains: The Implications of New Knowledge for Children's Early Literacy Learning." Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 38, no. 1, Mar. 2013.
    Pavlik, John V., and Shawn McIntosh. “Media Literacy in the Digital Age.” Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass Communication, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 44-68.
    Rosenwald, Michael. “Making Media Literacy Great Again.” Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 56, no. 2, 2017, pp. 94–99.
    ]]>     259 20 2 0     Genre Breakdown https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=391 Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:38:55 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/genre-breakdown/

    By David Feliz (‘20) & Miranda Liberto (‘21)

    Rhetoric is the use of words. Rhetorical situation is the circumstance which provides the genesis for the rhetoric used. When learning about genres in a rhetorical situation, it is important to recognize the patterns present in the text. It is important not only to understand the material one is reading, but to also be aware of the writer’s purpose and intent, and the context of what is being conveyed to the audience. Genres not only allow the reader to better understand, but they also help the writer with his or her writing process. So, what specifically is a genre and how can it help one’s understanding of the written word?

    A genre is a type or style of writing. Knowing the genre of a text will help one have a better understanding of where the author is coming from. This knowledge will also help one to interpret the writing and identify the author's intended audience. A solid approach begins with finding examples, looking for patterns, identifying standards and conventions, and applying those to the writing situation (professorrome, 2010, Oct. 21).

    There are many types of genres, for example, book genres include fiction, nonfiction, biographies, autobiographies, and fairytales. But when it comes to business writing, some examples of different genres include memos, proposals, reports, and resumes.

     

    [professorrome]. (2010, Oct. 21). Genre & Rhetorical Situation Review

    [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/1g67LhcXeJ8

    Accounting Genre

    By Laura Diaz (‘21) & John Isokpehi (‘21)

    Swales (2017) posits that genres are types of documents easily identified by readers and authors that address the rhetorical circumstances they represent or function in. Understanding genres has helped us to identify discourse community communications. Members of the accounting discourse community have several different types of genres, such as monthly statements, invoices, and real estate closing binders.

    A monthly statement is a synopsis of all financial transactions of a client during the month and will include any credits given. It is typically just given to clients with whom the merchant has affirmed to have a record with, and who have a business/buys terms of understanding. Statements are normally sent once every month as a record of debits and credits. Invoices and receipts are source documents for accounting: an invoice is also called a bill. Invoices and receipts are used in accounting to record sales transactions and to account for receipts for payment. A real estate closing binder is a compilation of the fully executed transaction documents accountants deliver to the individuals involved at the close of the transaction.

    Being able to identify genre in the written word is an important means for improving the quality of one’s work. There are many types of genres and they are used in various ways to convey specific information to readers. A genre is a major category or a type of writing. The major categories can be informative (e.g., employee handbook), persuasive (e.g., researched argument), or narrative (e.g., fiction). Within those major categories of genre are types of documents, or genres, that are used within a discourse community, such as one’s workplace, school, or membership organization.

    In the business discipline, and in any discourse community therein, being able to identify genres – a classification of literature, characterized by parallel format or subject matter – is a skill that will benefit all students throughout their college course work.

    Swales, J.M. (2017, Fall). Composition Forum 37. Composition Forum. http://compositionforum.com/issue/37/swales-retrospective.php

     

    More on Genres

    By Timothy Spurrier (‘21) & Seng Tsin (‘23)

    In every work of writing, the genre is specifically structured and formatted in response to a rhetorical situation – audience, purpose, tone, content, etc. (Dusseau, n.d.). Genres are the communication methods used to connect to the intended audience. When beginning to write, one must first determine the desired audience to structure and format the genre to fit the audiences’ preferences.

    Understanding the premises of discourse communities is an essential component to understanding genres in composition. Examples of genres in professional composition may include financial statements, memos, scholarly articles, emails, or even billboards. Once an understanding of both discourse communities and genres in composition is established, one will be able to further recognize the connection between specific genres and their place in a discourse community. For example, financial statements may be more common in an accounting discourse community, while billboards may be used in advertisement across discourse communities.

    In business composition, genres serve as forms of communication within each discourse community. Gaining a strong understanding of genres and their purpose in communication within discourse communities is an essential component for success in WRIT 300 and in the business world.

     

    Dusseau, D. (n.d.). Genres ff Business Writing. Dark Wing U Oregon. https://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ddusseau/101/199/199GENRES.htm


    Business Writing Genres (Informational and persuasive) :
    Advertisements

    Contract

    Email

    Informational video

    Letter

    Memo

    Mission Statement

    PowerPoint Presentation

    Proposal

    Report

    Website

    Whitepaper

     


    5

    ]]>     391 17 7 0     The Writing Process https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=432 Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/the-writing-process/

    By Tracy L.F. Worley & Ruth Robinson (’22)

    There are five fundamental steps in the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. But what does it all mean? Any writer, whether collegiate or professional, should have an organized process so their final product is thoughtful, organized, and well-written.

    The Steps in the Process

    Once you select your topic, begin your research. Check some of the online research sources, including your school library, and take copious notes – that means a lot of notes! Your research should include many perspectives on the same issue. If you are writing a researched argument, you want to be aware of both sides of the issue. Now you can begin to write.

    I like to call prewriting a “brain dump.” Write (or type) everything you can think of on your topic, your opinions, and the perspectives you researched. Don’t worry about organization yet; that will come later. As you prewrite, think about the points you want to make so you can organize your paper later.

    You’ve dumped everything on the page. Now it’s time to organize your thoughts. What are the key messages you want to convey? Begin with your topic. What is it you want to say? This will inform your thesis statement -- a single sentence, usually at the end of the introductory paragraph, that expresses the main point, idea, or argument of a research or expository paper. Organize your key messages from introduction of the topic to your conclusion. For example, if your topic is coronavirus testing, determine your position on testing and the point you want to make about it. The outline of what you want to write about might look like this –

    Introduction – testing should be mandated and implemented by the federal government for every citizen (thesis)

    Coronavirus: “Hoax” or Pandemic (background on virus spread, reactions of government leadership, etc.)

    Testing capacity at the state level (advantages and disadvantages)

    Conclusion (summarizes points supporting thesis and concludes why the thesis is correct)

    imageAnother strategy for visual learners is the clustering exercise – explore all the ideas you have on a topic by grouping them according to the central topic for the paper. In our example of the coronavirus testing paper, the cluster map might look life this –

    Now you are ready to draft your paper. Section by section, attack the topics you’ve outlined. Don’t worry about word or page count – just write. When using material from your sources, note where you got them so you can appropriately cite them in-text (within the narrative using parentheses at the end of the statement or paragraph you quoted or summarized) and in your reference list at the end of the paper. Rule of thumb on sources: If you cite it in-text, list it. If it’s in the list and it’s not cited in the paper, it should be.

    The draft is done! All that research and thoughtfulness has paid off in an essay you can mold into your own literary masterpiece. It’s time to revise, but before you do check your writing. Does my thesis clearly state my main point? Who is my audience, and will they understand the points I am trying to convey? What sources did I use, and have I properly attributed their work and listed them in my reference section?

    Revising your paper entails tightening up your work, making spelling and grammatical corrections, checking your use of language and voice. Unless your paper is a commentary or a conversation, write in the 3rd person. Even your opinion can be expressed in the 3rd person by stating affirmatively what you think. For example, why did you select the organization or discourse community? Instead of saying, “I chose ABC Organization because it represents my interest in the financial field,” say, “ABC Organization is a prime example of a discourse community that student of finance would be interested in.”

    Use active voice whenever possible, instead of passive voice. That is, you should create sentences where the subject of the sentence is the actor, and not someone or something that is acted upon. Why say, “ABC Organization is the selection of finance majors all over the university system for potential employment” (passive voice), when you can say, “Finance majors from all over the university system select ABC Organization for potential employment.” See the difference?

    Editing is the next step in the writing process. It entails improving your revised draft by fixing spelling and grammatical errors, clarifying word use, and making sentences clearer and less cumbersome. This is also the time to ensure that your essay says precisely what you mean – it should accurately and effectively support your thesis. Then, it’s time to proofread.

    Proofreading is that final look at your work to ensure you’ve caught everything that needs correcting. Check your formatting, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. It is only after this step that your essay be ready for submission.

     

    Expository Writing Boot Camp (2020). Why Do I Need to do Research? Retrieved from https://expositorywritingbootcamp.com/


    ]]>     432 17 8 0     IRL: In Real Life https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/irl/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 21:02:39 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/irl-and-mozilla/ IRL     is used to describe events or actions that are experienced in-person. Here, it refers to life still in the digital realm, but how our lives are affected by the security and protection, or exposure and invasion, of outside parties.  To understand our current and ever evolving situation, we have to look back on the history of privacy and the IV amendment.
    IV Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” This means: All the things in your house and on you are private and are protected against unreasonable search and seizure by the government.  That right will not be violated by the government without probable cause.
    This amendment is antiquated as it does not protect our digital environment and "things" outside our home. There have been a litany of cases where the courts attempt to apply the principles of the IV amendment to the current and evolving needs of society. The 2018 US v. Carpenter case is worth noting due to the amicus brief submitted by high profile tech companies (scroll past the list of all previous court cases to page 13/48 that is titled, "Statement of Interest").  The statement and case evidence prompted the court to adjust it’s interpretation of the IV Amendment and third party disclosure agreements. To understand how American surveillance developed between the passage of the constitution and Bill of Rights and the present, WNYC Studios Note to Self podcast: The Bookie, the phonebooth, and the FBI provides a concise story using a robbery that took place in Baltimore, MD as the backdrop.  The same group produced a follow up episode in 2018: The fourth amendment needs your attention.  ]]> 31 30 1 0 How to Use Previous Work https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/how-to-use-previous-work/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:25:23 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/how-to-use-previous-work/ Constructing a Query to Find Previous Fact-Checking You can find previous fact-checking by using the "site" option in search engines such as Google and DuckDuckGo to search known and trusted fact-checking sites for a given phrase or keyword. For example, if you see this story, Online Article. Figure 2 then you might use this query, which checks a couple known fact-checking sites for the keywords: obama iraqi refugee ban 2011. Let's use the DuckDuckGo search engine to look for the keywords:
    obama iraqi visa ban 2011 site:snopes.com site:politifact.com
    Here are the results of our search: Screenshot of DuckDuckGo search results. The top results are from fact-checking sites Snopes and Politifact. Figure 3 You can see the search here. The results show that work has already been done in this area. In fact, the first result from Snopes answers our question almost fully. Remember to follow best search engine practice: scan the results and focus on the URLs and the blurbs to find the best result to click in the returned result set. There are similar syntaxes you can use in Google, but for various reasons this particular search is easier in DuckDuckGo. Let's look at another claim, this time from the President. This claim is that police officer deaths increased 56 percent from 2015 to 2016. Here it is in context: Excerpt of Trump Speech on web page. Figure 4 Let's ramp it up with a query that checks four different fact-checking sites:
    officer deaths 2016 increased 56 percent from 2015 site:factcheck.org site:snopes.com site:politifact.com site:www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/
    This gives us back a helpful array of results. The first, from the Washington Post, actually answers our question directly, but some of the others provide some helpful context as well. Duck Duck Go search results. Figure 5 Going to the Washington Post lets us know that this claim is, for all intents and purposes, true. We don't need to go further, unless we want to.]]>     48 20 10 0     Fact-checking Sites https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/fact-checking-sites/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:25:45 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/fact-checking-sites/ Some Reputable Fact-Checking Organizations The following organizations are generally regarded as reputable fact-checking organizations focused on U.S. national news: Respected specialty sites cover niche areas such as climate or celebrities. Here are a few examples: There are many fact-checking sites outside the U.S. Here is a small sample:  ]]> 50 30 2 0 Research as discovery and fact checking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/how-to-think-about-research/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 23:43:20 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/how-to-think-about-research/ Fact-checking communities such as Wikipedia discourage authors from over-citing individual research, which tends to point in different directions. Instead, Wikipedia encourages users to find high quality secondary sources that reliably summarize the research base of a certain area, or research reviews of multiple works. This is good advice for fact-checkers as well. Without an expert’s background, it can be challenging to place new research in the context of old, which is what you want to do. Here’s a claim (two claims, actually) that ran recently in the Washington Post:
    The alcohol industry and some government agencies continue to promote the idea that moderate drinking provides some health benefits (1). But new research is beginning to call even that long-standing claim into question (2).
    Reading down further, we find a more specific claim: the medical consensus is that alcohol is a carcinogen even at low levels of consumption. Is this true? The first thing we do is look at the authorship of the article:
    • It’s from the Washington Post, which is a generally reliable publication
    • One of its authors has made a career of data analysis (and actually won a Pulitzer prize as part of a team that analyzed data and discovered election fraud in a Florida mayoral race). *So one thing to think about is that these authors may be better interpreters of the data than you. (Key thing for fact-checkers to keep in mind: You are often not a person in a position to know.)
    But suppose we want to dig further and find out if they are really looking at a shift in the expert consensus, or just adding more drops to the evidence bucket. How would we do that? First, we’d sanity check where the pieces they mention were published. The Post article mentions two articles by “Jennie Connor, a professor at the University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine,” one published last year and the other published earlier. Let’s find the more recent one, which seems to be a key input into this article. We go to Google Scholar and type in “‘Jennie Connor’ 2016”: The Google Scholar search results for “Jennie Connor 2016,” which shows her well-cited publications. Her 2017 article received 12 citations, and two articles were cited by 23 and 36 others. As usual, we’re scanning quickly to get to the article we want, but also minding our peripheral vision here. So, we see that the top one is what we probably want, but we also notice that Connor has other well-cited articles in the field of health. What about this article on “Alcohol consumption as a cause of cancer”? It was published in 2017 (which is probably the physical journal’s publication date, the article having been released in 2016). Nevertheless, it’s already been cited by twelve other papers. What about this publication Addiction? Is it reputable? Let’s take a look with an impact factor search. The Google search results for “addiction impact factor,” which we find in the knowledge panel to be 4.145 as of 2010. Yep, it looks legit. We also see in the knowledge panel to the right that the journal was founded in the 1880s. If we click through to that Wikipedia article, it will tell us that this journal ranks second in impact factor for journals on substance abuse. Again, you should never use impact factor for fine-grained distinctions. What we’re checking for here is that the Washington Post wasn’t fooled into covering some research far out of the mainstream of substance abuse studies, or tricked into covering something published in a sketchy journal. It’s clear from this quick check that this is a researcher well within the mainstream of her profession, publishing in prominent journals. Next we want to see what kind of article this is. Sometimes journals publish short reactions to other works, or smaller opinion pieces. What we’d like to see here is that this was either new research or a substantial review of research. We find from the abstract that it is primarily a review of research, including some of the newer studies. We note that it is a six-page article, and therefore not likely to be a simple letter or response to another article. The abstract also goes into detail about the breadth of evidence reviewed. Frustratingly, we can’t get our hands on the article, but this probably tells us enough about it for our purposes.]]>     145 20 9 0     What Makes a Trustworthy News Source? https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-makes-a-trustworthy-news-source/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 16:53:22 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-makes-a-trustworthy-news-source/ Experts have looked extensively at what sorts of qualities in a news source tend to result in fair and accurate coverage. Sometimes, however, the number and complexity of the various qualities can be daunting. We suggest the following short list of things to consider.

    • Machinery of care: Good news sources have significant processes and resources dedicated to promoting accuracy, and correcting error.
    • Transparency: Good news sources clearly mark opinion columns as opinion, disclose conflicts of interest, indicate in stories where information was obtained and how it was verified, and provide links to sources.
    • Expertise: Good news sources hire reporters with reporting or area expertise who have been educated in the processes of ethical journalism. Where new writers with other expertise are brought in, they are educated by the organization.
    • Agenda: The primary mission of a good news source is to inform its readers, not elect Democrats, promote tax cuts, or reform schools. You should absolutely read writers with activist missions like these, but do not treat them as "pure" news sources.
    Bias is about how people see things; agenda is about what the news source is set up to do.  When assessing the trustworthiness of a source, approach agenda last.
    It's easy to see bias in people you disagree with, and hard to see bias in people you agree with. But bias isn't agenda. A site that clearly marks opinion columns as opinion, employs dozens of fact-checkers, hires professional reporters, and takes care to be transparent about sources, methods, and conflicts of interest is less likely to be driven by political agenda than a site that does not do these things. And this holds even if the reporters themselves may have personal bias. Good process and news culture goes a long way to mitigating personal bias. Yet, you may see some level of these things and still have doubt. If the first three indicators don't settle the question for you, you should consider agenda. Is the source connected to political party leadership? Funded by oil companies? Have the owners made comments about what they are trying to achieve with their publication, and are those ends about specific social or political change or about creating a more informed public? Again, we cannot stress enough: you should read things by people with political agendas. It's an important part of your news diet. It's also the case that sometimes the people with the most expertise work for organizations that are trying to accomplish social or political goals. But when sourcing a fact or a statistic, agenda can get in the way and you'd want to find a less agenda-driven source if possible.]]>     155 17 36 0     Verifying Twitter Identity https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/verifying-twitter-identity/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 21:24:03 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/verifying-twitter-identity/ Twitter     is from the person you are attributing it to.

    Twitter Identity Basics

    With Twitter, accounts are generally (although not always) run by a single person. However, unlike Facebook, Twitter does not enforce a "real name" policy, which makes it easy for one person to run multiple accounts, and to run accounts under different names. In fact, an important part of Twitter culture is the constellation of parody accounts, bots, and single issue accounts that amuse and inform Twitter subscribers. At the same time, it's easy to get confused. As an example, consider the account of Representative Jack Kimble. Here's a typical tweet: Figure 71 If you're a liberal, looking at this tweet may get your blood boiling. How can anyone possibly believe this? Especially a Representative? Scanning the Twitter bio doesn't help. Figure 72 Here we see that he's from the 54th District of California and he's got a book out. Now if we're reading carefully we might notice some fishy things here: his book, Profiles in Courageousness, seems like a parodic re-titling of Jack Kennedy's Profiles in Courage. "E pluribus unum," which means "From the many, one," is translated to "1 nation under God". Oh, also: California only has 53 districts. Unfortunately, you'll likely be in such a huff about the comments that you won't notice any of these things. So what is a general purpose indicator that you need to slow down? In most cases, it's going to be the absence of a "verified account" marker.

    Checking Verified Accounts

    As a counter-example to "Representative Kimble," here's a real representative, Jason Chaffetz, from Utah's 3rd District. Figure 73 That little blue seal with the check mark (the "verified badge") indicates that this is a "verified identity" by Twitter--Twitter asserts that this person has proved they are who they say they are. Who gets to get verified? It's a bit unclear. Twitter puts it this way:
    An account may be verified if it is determined to be an account of public interest. Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.
    However, all members of Congress and senior administration officials qualify for such status. So do most major public figures and prominent writers. If you don't see the blue badge, either disregard the tweet as suspicious, or do further research. One additional note: sometimes people try to fake these indicators; an example is faking a verification symbol in a header. Figure 74 This user has used their background image to place a verification badge next to their name. To steer clear of these sort of hacks, always view the badge in the sidebar or small "hover" card, not the header. To be extra sure it's legit, hover your cursor over it-- the words "verified account" should pop up. This sounds complicated, but once you learn it, it takes maybe two seconds. Here I am, for example, checking to see if this is really New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's Spotify playlist, or a fake account, using a quick hover technique: https://youtu.be/twbHgKlDLoc Figure 75 In this case it's verified. The governor should probably lay off Billy Joel a bit, but this is a legitimate tweet.  

    Other Methods

    Not all celebrities have verified accounts. If you don't find the verification badge, you may have to dig a little deeper.
    There are a couple things to look for in an unverified account:
    • Start date: Did the user fire up this account six weeks ago? In general, older accounts are more trustworthy.
    • Followers: Not always a perfect metric, but do the number of followers seem about right for the personality's popularity? Do they have any followers you know?
    • Previous Tweets: Are there many previous tweets, and are they what you'd expect from the account? Do they have conversations with people in ways that you'd expect?
      As an example, here is the Minerva Schools Twitter account. Minerva is a small, but high-profile school in California. The account is not verified. Is the account legitimate? Is it really Minerva? Figure 76 A number of things suggest it is. It was created in August 2013, right around when I know Minerva was created. It has followers I know (from educational technology, which is what the school is known for). One of the followers is a person that I know that works there. Figure 77 We could stop there, or we could also note that the tweetstream is entirely consistent with what we'd expect for an organization like this, and the number of followers, while not huge, is in line with what we might expect for an account like this. No one single factor here clinches it (although the employee showing up in the follow list comes close), but all these factors together give us a fair amount of confidence that this is a legitimate account. If we wanted to go one step further (and we really don't have to here) we could web search the handle and see if it is referenced from any official pages.  

    Fake Screenshots

    Sometimes people fake screenshots of tweets that never happened. Not all tweet screenshots are fake. Many times Twitter users will screenshot a tweet rather than retweet it because they fear the original will be deleted. Here's Michael Li screenshotting an embarrassing tweet which was later deleted. Figure 78 Other times, people may screenshot a tweet because they wish to discuss a tweet without attracting the ire of a particular group of followers. As an example, during the #Gamergate controversy many people critical of Gamergate took screenshots of bad behavior on Twitter (harassment and the like) because they were afraid that if they commented via re-tweeting they might become a target themselves. Sometimes people retweet screenshots as a way of breaking a chain of credit, so that people will be forced to retweet them, and not the original tweeter. (This practice is rightfully frowned on). Sometimes, however, the screenshot may be fabricated. In fact, many "tweet generators" exist online that allow you to create fake pictures of tweets. I made this one a couple minutes ago: Figure 79 If you come across a person re-tweeting a screenshot, check to see if the tweet really exists on Twitter first. In the above case, for example, you could check Obama's timeline.

    Deleted Tweets

    What if they deleted the tweet, as in the "ONE MAN + ONE MAN" example above? How do you verify it then? Or what if the tweet someone was referencing has since been deleted. Don't worry--in many cases there's still ways to dig up the tweet. If it's a tweet from a politician (and it usually is) you can try Politiwhoops, which logs all tweets deleted by significant public officials.  Here are some tweets recently deleted by President Trump: Figure 80 Another technique is searching for the Twitter account on Google and looking for the cached version of the page. In the video below we search for @RealDonaldTrump in Google and then look at the cached version of his Twitter page. This works well with things recent enough to be on the first page of a Twitter stream, but old enough that Google has indexed them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mfF3a_Yfxs Figure 81 The Twitter bar sometimes obscures the cache information, but if you can see it, it will tell you when it was last indexed. The time is in Greenwich Mean Time (the same time as London, England). So for instance, this cache of Trumps tweets was taken at 2 o'clock London time (which would be early this morning in my Pacific Coast time). Figure 82            

    ]]> 169 20 15 0 ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> Finding Out When a Page Was Published Using Google https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-out-when-a-page-was-published/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 22:52:34 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-out-when-a-page-was-published/ ABCNews.co     (a hoax site that attempts to to look like an ABC news site). pro Figure 86 You'll note that the publication date was November 11. That's what the site looks like today. But we can see what it looked like previously, courtesy of archive.org's Wayback Machine. Here's what it looked like in March, sporting a publish date of March 24: hoax.PNG Figure 87 Here it is in June, sporting a date of June 16: june.PNG Figure 88 And in September, it sported a date of September 11: september Figure 89   Hoax sites often do this date incrementation to increase the share rate on older stories. People are more likely to share things if they believe they are breaking news and not yesterday's story. So how do we get some sense of when this story was first published? We can't get there exactly but we can often use Google to get close. Google stores the date of the first time it indexed a page--on popular sites this date is usually within a couple days of the true publish date (on unknown sites it is much less reliable). To get Google to show the indexed date of a page, you'll need to do two things:
    • Set up a search that will only return that particular page by using the "site:" search term
    • Trigger display date but setting a date range that ends with the current day.
    Here's what that looks like in this case: Figure 90 As you can see, we've taken the URL of the page and entered the following as the search term:
    site:abcnews.com.co/donald-trump-protester-speaks-out-i-was-paid-to-protest/
    Then we've used date filtering to create a filter that doesn't exclude anything (its date range is all possible dates), but triggers this sort of date display in Google. Again, this is not a rock-solid publication date, but we can say that there was some content at this URL at this date, and in most cases, with a URL like this, that means the story was up by then.  ]]> 179 20 20 0 Using Google Books to Track Down Quotes https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-google-books-to-track-down-quotes/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:17:55 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-google-books-to-track-down-quotes/ Figure 91 Quotes are the internet are some of the most commonly faked content. People misattribute quotes to give them significance, or fabricate tendentious quotes to create controversy. (For some examples of fact-checking historical quotes, check out Quote Investigator). In our case, if we know that Carl Sagan is an author of many books, rather than start in Google or DuckDuckGo's general search we might start in Google Books, which will likely get us to the source of the quote faster. Additionally, even if we cannot find the source, we might find a someone quoting this in a book from a major publisher, which is likely to have a more developed fact-checking process than some guy on Twitter. So we go to Google Books and we pick out just a short snippet of unique phrasing. I'm going to choose "clutching  our crystals and nervously consulting." Figure 92 Down there at the bottom, the fourth result, is a book by Carl Sagan. It says it's from 2011, but don't be fooled by this date; this is just the date of the edition indexed here. Let's click through to the book to check the quote and sort out the date later. Clicking through the book we find the quote is accurate. More importantly, we find the surrounding context and find that this quote is not being taken out of context. Sagan was truly worried about this issue. His prediction was very much that a sound bite obsessed media, combined with a sort of celebration of ignorance, would drag us backwards. He understood that the world was becoming more difficult while the communication of ideas was simultaneously becoming more shallow. Figure 93 You can find out the original publication date of this work a number of ways. There's a "more versions" option on the Google Books interface. You could go look for the book's article on Wikipedia, as they will usually give you the publication date. But the easiest way is usually to turn to the front pages of the book and find the date, just as you would with a physical book. Figure 94          ]]> 187 20 18 0 Understanding Astroturf https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/understanding-astroturf/ Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:30:47 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/understanding-astroturf/ many grassroots elements, being organized on the local level by loosely connected people and local organizations. Moms Demand Action, a gun control advocacy group, was started when a stay-at-home mother was shocked by her son's response to the Sandy Hook school shooting. She put up a Facebook page to organize action, and slowly built a movement. Citizens tend to look more favorably upon people-powered, local politics than corporate funded initiatives funded by people from somewhere else. The desire to portray corporate and non-local efforts as local has led to a practice called astroturfing, where large corporations or rich individuals use "front groups" that look like local groups of activists, but are funded and organized primarily by national corporations or rich individuals from elsewhere. When deciding whether an organization is astroturfing, consider the following:
    • Who funded it (Was it a corporation, national foundation, or local money?)
    • Who founded it (Was it founded locally, and by whom?)
    • What interest that group might have in the action or initiative proposed (Is it financial, for instance, or related to larger social concerns?)
    There is a bit of a sliding scale here for what qualifies as astroturfing. A locally founded initiative that receives primarily national money is (a bit) less astro-turfy than an organization founded directly by a corporation. An initiative that receives money from a foundation dedicated to a larger social goal (such as elimination of poverty) is less astro-turfy than a corporation spending money to boost its stock price or get rid of regulations that constrain it. In general, what is most important is whether the organization's reality matches the story that they are publicly telling.  ]]>     189 20 13 0     Treating Google’s “Snippets” with Suspicion https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/treat-google-cards-with-suspicion/ Wed, 08 Mar 2017 21:55:36 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/treat-google-cards-with-suspicion/ Google, you will not only find websites, but you may also find a "knowledge panel" that appears to have what search expert Danny Sullivan calls the "One True Answer," an answer that appears on a knowledge panel on top of the results. Sometimes Google pulls an answer from a source algorithmically. For example, in response to "How many men landed on the moon?," this panel answers "12 men," citing a Quora article. Figure 97 Sometimes Google does not pull out the answer but makes the answer apparent in the blurb or headline of the card, as in this answer to the query, "last person to walk on the moon": Figure 98 This function of Google can be useful, but it malfunctions frequently enough that it should not be trusted without verifying the source and context of the answer. There are two major problems: false simplicity and false (or non-standard) information.

    False Simplicity

    Here's a question: how many apostles are there in the Christian tradition? Google tells you, via a panel, even pulling out the number, thereby making it look decidedly objective: there are twelve! Figure 99 If you click through to that Quora question, though, you'll find that it answers a much more specific and simpler question: how many original apostles did Christ have (according to tradition). And for that answer they are correct. Including Judas, there are twelve. But according to tradition, when Judas dies Matthias becomes an apostle, so that's thirteen. Then, Paul is an apostle, so fourteen. And Barnabas, Timothy, and James. The truth is that this answer is pretty debatable: it's certainly not twelve, and some versions of the Bible refer to up to 25 different people as "apostles." It gets worse. These numbers, which are already various, come from various Christian traditions. Many historians, on the other hand, see the twelve apostles as a creation of the early Church, that had no reality or significance during the lifetime of the historical Jesus and was later "retrojected" into the Gospels. The fact is the whole question of how many apostles there were and who they were is inextricably bound up with complex questions of religion, history, and 1st century power struggles about who counted in the early church and who didn't. This may seem petty, but the truth is any extended discussion of this issue from any source, religious or historical, will surface these issues to the person who investigates. Google's panels, however, are oblivious to this kind of complexity and present a simple numerical answer where no simple answer actually exists.

    Misleading Highlights

    Google uses some programming to try and highlight relevant answers in the blurb, but the highlighting is confused or confusing. Here, Google, when asked how old Lee Harvey Oswald was when he shot Kennedy, highlights 18, 24, and 22. Figure 100 In reality, the answer is 24 years old, though a quick glance at this might have you thinking 18 or 22.

    Blatant Misinformation

    Sometimes the panel presents blatant misinformation. Often this material is the product of highly politicized areas or of conspiracy-believing communities, which tend to rank highly on Google search results more generally. Take for instance this search, where we ask Google which presidents were in the Ku Klux Klan. The Google panel provides what seems to be a definitive answer: there were five!

    Figure 101 As Case University Western history professor Peter Schulman points out, this isn't even remotely true. None of these presidents were members of the Ku Klux Klan (as far as we know), and if you click through to the article, you'll find the source here is a Nigerian newspaper of uncertain stature that references a book by David Barton, a nationalist known for self-publishing dubious works of historical revisionism. There are numerous examples of similar behavior. Adrianne Jefferies at The Outline details some more bad snippets, including this one claiming Obama is planning for martial law (complete fiction): Figure 102 Google will also tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't assassinate John F. Kennedy, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary: Figure 103

    Confirmation Bias and Bad Snippets

    A lot of times Google is just bad. But sometimes bad answers are often the result of asking questions in ways that tap into the language or concerns of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, or fringe beliefs. For example, there is a very real problem some people have with monosodium glutumate, a food additive that triggers an allergic reaction in a small portion of the population. If you search on a phrase likely to by found in the medical literature like "msg sensitivity," you get a fairly reliable result. Figure 104 Healthline, in this case, is a recognized provider of reliable health information. All this changes if you use the language of fringe groups that believe the medical community is suppressing a link between MSG and a variety of neurological disorders. Here's what you get when you type in 'msg dangers': Figure 105 The blurb says it all (brain damage! alzheimer's! learning disabilities!), but if you look up the site (mercola.com) you'll find it is run by a physician who has been warned by the FDA repeatedly to stop making false claims.  

    Our Advice

    In general, simply treat the Google panel ("one true answer") as you would any other top search result. Despite Google's claims to the contrary, it is not significantly more or less reliable than an average source. Click through, trace the claims on the page to a source, and investigate the source. Never trust its result without validating the source of the claim.      ]]>     202 20 19 0     Confirmation Bias https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/avoiding-confirmation-bias-in-searches/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:10:26 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/avoiding-confirmation-bias-in-searches/   Not only does the top result says that the attack on 9/11 was faked--the top five results do. To the untrained eye it looks like the press has been hiding something from you.  But of course the 9/11 attacks were not faked. So why does Google return these results? The main reason is the terms used to search the topic. The term "hoax" is applied to the 9/11 attacks primarily on conspiracy sites. So when Google looks for clusters on that term (and links to documents containing that term), it finds that conspiracy sites rank highly.
    Confirmation bias occurs when a user seeks information that supports the user's point of view and ignores evidence that provides an alternative perspective.
      Think about it: reputable physics journals, policy magazines, and national newspapers are not likely to run headlines asking if the attacks were a hoax, but conspiracy sites use the term liberally. The same holds true even for more benign searches. The question, "Are we eating too much protein" has Google return a panel from the Huffington Post (now HuffPost) and a website from a vegan advocacy group. Google search results for “are we eating too much protein” in which Google pulls a knowledge panel from Huffington Post, and the top site promotes veganism.  
    The biases displayed in the language used to search and the search results is not limited to Google, or internet search engines in general.  The bias is in the language used to describe the idea or event.  Creators employ that language in commercial packaging, library catalogs, or real estate listings and countless other ways of communicating.

    To avoid confirmation bias:

    • Avoid asking questions that imply a certain answer. If you ask, "Did the Holocaust happen?," for example, it is implied that the Holocaust was faked. If you want information on the Holocaust, sometimes it's better just to start with a simple noun search, e.g. "Holocaust," and read summaries that show how we know what happened.
    • Avoid using terms that imply a certain answer. As an example, if you query, "Women 72 cents on the dollar" you'll likely get articles that tell you women make 72 cents on the dollar. But is you search for "Women 80 cents on the dollar" you'll get articles that say women make 80 cents on the dollar. Searching for general articles on the "wage gap"  might be a better choice.
    • Avoid culturally loaded terms. As an example, the term "black-on-white crime" is term used by white supremacist groups, but is not a term generally used by sociologists, nor do statistics support this claim. As such, if you put that term into the Google search bar, you are going to get some sites that will carry the perspective of white supremacist sites, and be lousy sources of serious sociological analysis. If you don't know if a term or phrase is culturally loaded, pay special attention to and practice the following two steps.
    • Think carefully about what constitutes an authoritative source before you search. Use that criteria to assess your search results.  Then, once you acquire search results, use lateral reading techniques to assess the sources you chose to pursue/click on.
    • Scan results for better terms. Maybe your first question about whether the holocaust happened turned up a lousy result set in general but did pop up a Wikipedia article on Holocaust denialism. Use that term (in this case, "denialism") to make a better search for what you actually want to know.
    ]]>     217 20 3 0     Promoted Tweets https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/promoted-tweets/ Thu, 16 Feb 2017 16:48:12 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/promoted-tweets/ Twitter money to put it in your feed. Here's an example of a promoted tweet, asking you to "Tweet your Senators" about the dangers of drug importation: Figure 115 Promoted tweets aren't necessarily untrue, but they should be treated the way one would treat a commercial. In this case, we look to see what organization has posted the tweet.   Figure 116 That leads us to their webpage and organization name: The Partnership for Safe Medicines. Figure 117 And a little bit of investigation takes us to a page on the NPR site that shows this organization has ties to Big Pharma: Figure 118 While none of these means the claims of the organization claims are wrong or false, it is a worthwhile perspective to have before you decide to retweet the tweet or not. Treat promoted tweets with suspicion. Someone is paying money to influence you, and it's best to know who before retweeting.]]> 223 20 17 0 Analytical Thinking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/analyticalthinking/ Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:44:58 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/7-3-analytical-thinking-college-success-openstax/

    Questions to consider as you read this chapter

    • How can you best establish component parts in thinking?
    • How can you use analysis to improve efficiency?

    Thinking helps in many situations, as we’ve discussed throughout this chapter. When we work out a problem or situation systematically, breaking the whole into its component parts for separate analysis, to come to a solution or a variety of possible solutions, we call that [pb_glossary id="263"]analytical thinking[/pb_glossary]. Characteristics of analytical thinking include:

    1. setting up the parts of problem or situation
    2. using information literacy skills to engage in inquiry about the parts
    3. verifying the validity of any sources you reference to come to a conclusion
    While the phrase [pb_glossary id="263"]analytical thinking[/pb_glossary] may sound daunting, we actually do this sort of thinking in our everyday lives when we brainstorm, budget, detect patterns, plan, compare, work puzzles, and make decisions based on multiple sources of information. Think of all the thinking that goes into the logistics of a dinner-and-a-movie date—where to eat, what to watch, who to invite, what to wear, popcorn or candy—when choices and decisions are rapid-fire, but we do it relatively successfully all the time.

    Employers specifically look for candidates with analytical skills because they need to know employees can use clear and logical thinking to resolve conflicts that cause work to slow down or may even put the company in jeopardy of not complying with state or national requirements. If everything always went smoothly on the shop floor or in the office, we wouldn’t need front-line managers, but everything doesn’t always go according to plan or company policy.

    Your ability to think analytically could be the difference between getting a good job and being passed over by others who prove they are stronger thinkers. A mechanic who takes each car apart piece by piece to see what might be wrong instead of investigating the entire car, gathering customer information, assessing the symptoms, and focusing on a narrow set of possible problems is not an effective member of the team. Some career fields even have set, formulaic analyses that professionals in those fields need to know how to conduct and understand, such as a cost analysis, a statistical analysis, or a return on investment (ROI) analysis.

    Check your experience: Create a list of at least two courses you are taking now that you think would routinely practice analytical thinking. Now, think of the profession you are interested in joining:

    • How could the deliberate use of analytical thinking processes be beneficial for that career field?
    • What are you currently learning about in your courses that apply directly to your chosen career path?
    • Think of at least two ways analytical thinking would be used in the career field you are pursuing.
     

    Establishing Component Parts

    [pb_glossary id="495"]Component parts[/pb_glossary] refer to the separate elements of a situation or problem. It might include the people involved, the locations of the people, the weather, market fluctuations, or any number of other characteristics of the situation you’re examining. If you don’t identify all parts of a problem, you run the risk of ignoring a critical element when you offer the solution.  This may not ultimately be the solution, but after establishing the component parts and thinking analytically, you have provided at least one viable solution.

    Situation: There is a scheduling problem at home and you seem to never see your loved ones. The first step in thinking through this problem analytically would be to decide what is contributing to this unfavorable result: Assess the contributing factors: Examine the family members’ individual work, school, and personal schedules, and then create a group calendar to determine if pockets of time exist that are not taken by outside commitments. Potential solutions: Perhaps rather than reading your homework assignments at the college library, you could plan to one day a week read with other members of your family who are doing quiet work. You may also need to determine how time is spent to better understand the family’s use of time, perhaps using categories such as work/school, recreation, exercise, sleep, and meals.  Once you sort the categories for all the family members, you may see blocks of time spent that would lend themselves to combining with other categories—if you and your significant other both exercise three times a week for an hour each time but at separate locations, one possible solution may be to work out together. You could alternate locations if both people have favorite places to run, or you could compromise and decide on one location for both of you—one week at the park, one week at the campus rec center.
    What if you encounter setbacks in any steps of your problem solving? Is there a contingency plan? In the construction industry, engineers called this float, and they deliberately build in extra time and money in case problems arise on the project. This allows them to avoid getting off schedule, for instance if a severe storm makes access to the worksite impossible.

    Forging a Revolution

    While most problems require a variety of thinking types, [pb_glossary id="263"]analytical thinking[/pb_glossary] is arguably required in solving all.

    In the 1960s, companies did not have a fast, reliable, and cost-effective way to deliver urgent documents or packages to each other. The standard mail system was slow but inexpensive, and the only alternative was a private courier, which, while faster, was prohibitively expensive. That’s when Frederick W. Smith came up with the idea of a national, overnight delivery service as a part of an assignment in his undergraduate economics class at Yale University.

    As the story goes, Smith received only an average grade because evidently his professor wasn’t all that impressed with the concept, but after analyzing the problems with the current system, thinking through his original ideas more fully, and refining his business plan, Smith launched FedEx, the largest, now global, overnight delivery service in the world.1 This isn’t a parable about ignoring your professors, but a testimony to thinking through ideas others may not initially support or even understand; thinking can create change and always has. As with Smith’s overnight delivery service, any service we now use and any problem we may still face provides thinkers with opportunities to generate solutions and viable options for improvement. Your thinking may result in a new personal service, a cure for cancer, or a revolutionary way to deliver water to developing countries.

    Footnotes

    Citation information from original OpenStax publication (content modified within CC license guidelines)
    ]]>     243 17 1 0     Critical Thinking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/criticalthinking/ Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:48:26 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/7-4-critical-thinking-college-success-openstax/

    Questions to consider while you read

    • How can determining the situation help you think critically?
    • How do you present informed, unbiased (or less biased) thinking?
    • What is the difference between factual arguments and opinions?

    [pb_glossary id="501"]Critical thinking[/pb_glossary] has become a buzz phrase in education and corporate environments in recent years. The definitions vary slightly, but most agree that thinking critically includes some form of judgement that thinkers generate after careful analysis of the perspectives, opinions, or experimental results present for a particular problem or situation. Before you wonder if you’re even capable of critical thinking, consider that you think critically every day.

    When you decide to make your lunch rather than just grabbing a bag of chips, you’re thinking critically. You have to plan ahead, buy the food, possibly prepare it, arrange to and carry the lunch with you, and you may have various reasons for doing that—making healthier eating choices, saving money for an upcoming trip, or wanting more quiet time to unwind instead of waiting in a crowded lunch line. You are constantly weighing options, consulting data, gathering opinions, making choices, and then evaluating those decisions, which is a general definition of critical thinking.

    Consider the following situations and how each one demands your thinking attention. Which do you find most demanding of critical thinking? Why?

    1. Participating in competitive athletic events
    2. Watching competitive athletic events
    3. Reading a novel for pleasure
    4. Reading a textbook passage in science

    Critical thinking forces you to determine the actual situation under question and to determine your thoughts and actions around that situation.

    Determining the Problem

    One component to keep in mind to guide your [pb_glossary id="501"]critical thinking[/pb_glossary] is to determine the situation.

    • What problem are you solving?
    • When problems become complex and multifaceted, it is easy to be distracted by the simple parts that may not need as much thinking to resolve but also may not contribute as much to the ultimate problem resolution.
    • What aspect of the situation truly needs your attention and your critical thinking?

    Critical thinking differs according to the subject you’re thinking about, and as such it can be difficult to pin down any sort of formula to make sure you are doing a good job of thinking critically in all situations. While you may need to adapt this list of critical thinking components, you can get started if you do the following:

    • Question everything
    • Conduct legitimate research
    • Limit your assumptions
    • Recognize your own biases
    • Gather and weigh all options

    Additionally, you must recognize that changes will occur and may alter your conclusions now and in the future. You may eventually have to revisit an issue you effectively resolved previously and adapt to changing conditions. Knowing when to do that is another example of critical thinking. Informed flexibility, or knowing that parts of the plan may need to change and how those changes can work into the overall goal, is also a recognized element of thinking critically.

    Defending against Bias

    Once you have all your information gathered and you have checked your sources for currency and validity, you need to direct your attention to how you’re going to present your now well-informed analysis. Be careful on this step to recognize your own possible biases.

    Facts are verifiable; opinions are beliefs without supporting evidence. Stating an opinion is just that. You could say “Blue is the best color,” and that’s your opinion. If you were to conduct research and find evidence to support this claim, you could say, “Researchers at Oxford University recognize that the use of blue paint in mental hospitals reduces heart rates by 25% and contributes to fewer angry outbursts from patients.” This would be an informed analysis with credible evidence to support the claim.

    Not everyone will accept your analysis, which can be frustrating. Most people resist change and have firm beliefs on both important issues and less significant preferences. With all the competing information surfacing online, on the news, and in general conversation, you can understand how confusing it can be to make any decisions. Look at all the reliable, valid sources that claim different approaches to be the best diet for healthy living: ketogenic, low-carb, vegan, vegetarian, high fat, raw foods, paleo, Mediterranean, etc. All you can do in this sort of situation is conduct your own serious research, check your sources, and write clearly and concisely to provide your analysis of the information for consideration. You cannot force others to accept your stance, but you can show your evidence in support of your thinking, being as persuasive as possible without lapsing into your own personal biases. Then the rest is up to the person reading or viewing your analysis.

    Factual Arguments vs. Opinions

    Thinking and constructing analyses based on your thinking will bring you in contact with a great deal of information. Some of that information will be factual, and some will not be. You need to be able to distinguish between facts and opinions so you know how to support your arguments. Begin with basic definitions:

    • Fact: a statement that is true and backed up with evidence; facts can be verified through observation or research
    • Opinion: a statement someone holds to be true without supporting evidence; opinions express beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, or judgements

    Of course, the tricky part is that most people do not label statements as fact and opinion, so you need to be aware and recognize the difference as you go about honing your critical thinking skills.

    You probably have heard the old saying “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions,” which may be true, but conversely, not everyone is entitled to their own facts. Facts are true for everyone, not just those who want to believe in them. For example, mice are animals is a fact; mice make the best pets is an opinion.

    Activity

    Determine if the following statements are facts or opinions based on just the information provided here, referring to the basic definitions of the terms fact of opinion above. Some people consider scientific findings to be opinions even when they are convincingly backed by reputable evidence and experimentation. However, remember the definition of fact—verifiable by research or observation. Think about what other research you may have to conduct to make an informed decision.

    • Oregon is a state in the United States. (How would this be proven?)
    • Increased street lighting decreases criminal behavior. (What information would you need to validate this claim?)
    • In 1952, Elizabeth became Queen of England. (What documents could validate this?)
    • Acne is an embarrassing skin condition. (Who might verify this claim?)
    • Kindergarten decreases student dropout rates. (Think of different interest groups that may take sides on this issue.)
    • Carbohydrates promote weight gain. (Can you determine if this is a valid statement?)
    • Immigration is good for the US economy. (What research would help you make an informed decision on this topic?)

    Many people become very attached to their opinions, even stating them as facts despite the lack of verifiable evidence. Think about political campaigns, sporting rivalries, musical preferences, and religious or philosophical beliefs. When you are reading, writing, and thinking critically, you must be on the lookout for sophisticated opinions others may present as factual information. While it’s possible to be polite when questioning another person's opinions when engaging in intellectual debate, thinking critically requires that you do conduct this questioning.

    For instance, someone may say or write that a particular political party should move its offices to different cities every year—that’s an opinion regardless of whether you side with one party or the other. If, on the other hand, the same person said that one political party is headquartered in a specific city, that is a fact you can verify. You could find sources that can validate or discredit the statement. Even if the city the person lists as the party headquarters is incorrect, the statement itself is still a fact—just an erroneous one.

    If you use biased and opinionated information or even incorrect facts as your evidence to support your factual arguments, then you have not validated your sources or checked your facts well enough. At this point, you would need to keep researching.
    Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book is Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and you must attribute OpenStax. Attribution information
    • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
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    ]]>     244 17 2 0     Problem Solving https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/problem-solving/ Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:48:56 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/7-5-problem-solving-college-success-openstax/

    Questions to consider:

    • How can determining the best approach to solve a problem help you generate solutions?
    • Why do thinkers create multiple solutions to problems?

    When we’re solving a problem, whether at work, school, or home, we are being asked to perform multiple, often complex, tasks. The most effective problem-solving approach includes some variation of the following steps:

    • Determine the issue(s)
    • Recognize other perspectives
    • Think of multiple possible results
    • Research and evaluate the possibilities
    • Select the best result(s)
    • Communicate your findings
    • Establish logical action items based on your analysis

    Determining the best approach to any given problem and generating more than one possible solution to the problem constitutes the complicated process of problem-solving. People who are good at these skills are highly marketable because many jobs consist of a series of problems that need to be solved for production, services, goods, and sales to continue smoothly.

    Think about what happens when a worker at your favorite coffee shop slips on a wet spot behind the counter, dropping several drinks she just prepared. One problem is the employee may be hurt, in need of attention, and probably embarrassed; another problem is that several customers do not have the drinks they were waiting for; and another problem is that stopping production of drinks (to care for the hurt worker, to clean up her spilled drinks, to make new drinks) causes the line at the cash register to back up. A good manager has to juggle all of these elements to resolve the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible. That resolution and return to standard operations doesn’t happen without a great deal of thinking: prioritizing needs, shifting other workers off one station onto another temporarily, and dealing with all the people involved, from the injured worker to the impatient patrons.
     

    Determining the Best Approach

    Faced with a problem-solving opportunity, you must assess the skills you will need to create solutions. Problem-solving can involve many different types of thinking.

    • You may have to call on your creative, analytical, or critical thinking skills—or more frequently, a combination of several different types of thinking—to solve a problem satisfactorily.
    • When you approach a situation, how can you decide what is the best type of thinking to employ? Sometimes the answer is obvious; if you are working a scientific challenge, you likely will use analytical thinking; if you are a design student considering the atmosphere of a home, you may need to tap into creative thinking skills; and if you are an early childhood education major outlining the logistics involved in establishing a summer day camp for children, you may need a combination of critical, analytical, and creative thinking to solve this challenge.

    Activity

    What sort of thinking do you imagine initially helped in the following scenarios? How would the other types of thinking come into resolving these problems? Write a one- to two-sentence rationale on scrap paper or notepad that explains why you chose the answers to the questions below.

    1. Mission Control reacting to the Apollo 13 emergency
      1. Analytical thinking
      2. Creative thinking
      3. Critical thinking
    2. Automakers coordinating the switch from fuel-based to electric cars
      1. Analytical thinking
      2. Creative thinking
      3. Critical thinking
    3. The construction of the New York subway system
      1. Analytical thinking
      2. Creative thinking
      3. Critical thinking

    Generating Multiple Solutions

    Why do you think it is important to provide multiple solutions when you’re going through the steps to solve problems? Typically, you’ll end up only using one solution at a time, so why expend the extra energy to create alternatives?

    If you planned a wonderful trip to Europe and had all the sites you want to see planned out and reservations made, you would think that your problem-solving and organizational skills had quite a workout. But what if when you arrived, the country you’re visiting is enmeshed in a public transportation strike experts predict will last several weeks if not longer? A back-up plan would have helped you contemplate alternatives you could substitute for the original plans. You certainly cannot predict every possible contingency—sick children, weather delays, economic downfalls—but you can be prepared for unexpected issues to come up and adapt more easily if you plan for multiple solutions.

    Write out at least two possible solutions to these dilemmas:

    • Your significant other wants a birthday present—you have no cash.
    • You have three exams scheduled on a day when you also need to work.
    • Your car breaks down and requires an expensive repair and you need bus fare home—your cell phone is dead and you only have an ATM card with a max withdrawal limit of $200.
    • You have to pass a running test for your physical education class, but you’re out of shape.

    Providing more than one solution to a problem gives people options. You may not need several options, but having more than one solution will allow you to feel more in control and part of the problem-solving process.

    Citation/Attribution
    Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book is Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and you must attribute OpenStax. Attribution information
    • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
      Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
    • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
      Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
    Citation information © Mar 26, 2020 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.
    ]]>     245 17 3 0     Metacognition https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/metacognition/ Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:49:25 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/7-6-metacognition-college-success-openstax/ For many of us, it was in kindergarten or first grade when our teacher asked our class to “put on our thinking caps.” That may partially have been a clever way for a harried teacher to get young scholars to calm down and focus, but the idea is an apt depiction of how we think.

    Depending on the situation, we may have to don several very different caps to do our best thinking. Knowing which cap to wear in which situation so we are most prepared, effective, and efficient becomes the work of a lifetime. When you can handle more than one complex thought at a time or when you need to direct all your focus on one crucial task is highly individual. Some people study well with music on in the background while others need absolute silence and see any noise as a distraction. Many chefs delight in creating dinners for hundreds of people in a chaotic kitchen but don’t care for making a meal for two at home.

    When an individual thinks about how he or she thinks, this practice is called [pb_glossary id="506"]metacognition[/pb_glossary]. Developmental psychiatrist John Flavell coined the term metacognition and divided the theory into three processes of planning, tracking, and assessing your own understanding.[footnote]Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), The nature of intelligence (pp. 231–236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.[/footnote]

    “Becoming aware of your thought processes and using this awareness deliberately is a sign of mature thinking.”

    For example, you may be reading a difficult passage in a textbook on chemistry and recognize that you are not fully understanding the meaning of the section you just read or its connection to the rest of the chapter. Students use [pb_glossary id="506"]metacognition[/pb_glossary] when they practice self-awareness and self-assessment. You are the best judge of how well you know a topic or a skill.

    In college especially, thinking about your thinking is crucial so you know what you don't know and how to fix this problem, i.e., what you need to study, how you need to organize your calendar, and so on.

    If you stop and recognize this challenge with the aim of improving your comprehension, you are practicing metacognition. You may decide to highlight difficult terms to look up, write a summary of each paragraph in as few sentences as you can, or join a peer study group to work on your comprehension.

    If you know you retain material better if you hear it, you may read out loud or watch video tutorials covering the material. These are all examples of thinking about how you think and adapting your behavior based on this metacognition. Likewise, if you periodically assess your progress toward a goal, such as when you check your grades in a course every few weeks during a long semester so you know how well you are doing, this too is metacognition.

    Beyond just being a good idea, thinking about your own thinking process allows you to reap great benefits from becoming more aware of and deliberate with your thoughts. If you know how you react in a specific thinking or learning situation, you have a better chance to improve how well you think or to change your thoughts altogether by tuning into your reaction and your thinking. You can plan how to move forward because you recognize that the way you think about a task or idea makes a difference in what you do with that thought. The famous Greek philosopher Socrates allegedly said, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living.” Examine your thoughts and be aware of them.

    Becoming Aware of Your Thinking

    Just as elite athletes watch game footage and work with coaches to improve specific aspects of their athletic performance, students can improve their mindset and performance reliant upon their thinking by starting to be aware of what they think. If a baseball pitcher recognizes that the curveball that once was so successful in producing strikeouts has not worked as well recently, the pitcher may break down every step of the physical movement required for the once-successful pitch. He and his coaches may notice a slight difference they can remedy during practice to improve the pitch.

    This thinking allow the owner of the thought to contemplate alternatives instead of becoming frustrated or mindlessly continuing to sabotage sincere goals. Think now of a personal example of a habit you may want to change, such as smoking, or an attribute such as patience or perseverance you may want to improve in yourself. Can you determine what steps you may need to undertake to change this habit or to develop a stronger awareness of the need to change?

    Using Thought Deliberately

    If you need to plan, track, and assess your understanding to engage in metacognition, what strategies do you need to employ? Students can use metacognition strategies before, during, and after reading, lectures, assignments, and group work.

    Planning

    Students can plan and get ready to learn by asking questions such as:

    • What am I supposed to learn in this situation?
    • What do I already know that might help me learn this information?
    • How should I start to get the most out of this situation?
    • What should I be looking for and anticipating as I read or study or listen?

    As part of this planning stage, students may want to jot down the answers to some of the questions they considered while preparing to study. If the task is a writing assignment, prewriting is particularly helpful just to get your ideas down on paper. You may want to start an outline of ideas you think you may encounter in the upcoming session; it probably won’t be complete until you learn more, but it can be a place to start.

    Tracking

    Students can keep up with their learning or track their progress by asking themselves:

    • How am I doing so far?
    • What information is important in each section?
    • Should I slow down my pace to understand the difficult parts more fully?
    • What information should I review now or mark for later review?

    In this part of metacognition, students may want to step away from a reading selection and write a summary paragraph on what the passage was about without looking at the text. Cornell University is famous for coining this method of notetaking that provided time during lectures for students to summarize their notes before moving to the next subject.[footnote]Cornell University (2021) The Cornell note taking system. The Learning Strategies Center. http://lsc.cornell.edu/how-to-study/taking-notes/cornell-note-taking-system/[/footnote]

    Another way to track your learning progress is to review lecture or lab notes within a few hours of the initial note-taking session. This allows you to have a fresh memory of the information and fill in gaps you may need to research more fully.

    Reflection and Assessment

    Students can assess their learning by asking themselves:

    • How well do I understand this material?
    • What else can I do to understand the information better?
    • Is there any element of the task I don’t get yet?
    • What do I need to do now to understand the information more fully?
    • How can I adjust how I study (or read or listen or perform) to get better results moving forward?
    How much more effective could you be in general if instead of reacting to events and then contemplating better alternatives later, you were able to do the thinking proactively before the situation arises? Just the act of pausing to think through the potential consequences is a good first step to accomplishing the goal of using metacognition to reduce negative results. Can you think of a situation in which you reacted to events around you with less than ideal results? How about a time when you thought through a situation beforehand and reaped the benefits of this proactive approach?
     
    Citation/Attribution
    Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book is Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and you must attribute OpenStax. Attribution information
    • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
      Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
    • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
      Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
    Citation information © Mar 26, 2020 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.
    ]]>     246 17 4 0     Foundations and Value Judgements https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/foundations-and-value-judgements/ Wed, 21 Oct 2020 18:37:05 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=258
  • Is this what I need?
  • Is this enough?
  • Can I trust what I'm looking at?
    • Those three questions may not be all you ask, or the questions may be too much.  In a lot of cases, we simply ask, "Is what I've found good enough?".  This is called, satisficing.  The judgement of good enough comes from our beliefs and knowledge about where we place importance.  How much control do we have over that belief and knowledge structure? The goal of developing information consumption literacies is to give you more control over that belief and knowledge structure.  To inform you of all the influences that shape the media we consume.  Build a set of skills that you can put into practice when you are performing mundane tasks like finding a good place for lunch to more complex and important tasks. Dr. Safiya Noble addressed the importance of understanding the tools that shape our belief and knowledge structure in a 2016 Personal Democracy Forum talk. ]]>     258 20 1 0     Rhetorical Analysis & Informal Fallacies https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/rhetorical-analysis-informal-fallacies/ Sat, 17 Oct 2020 23:57:08 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=283 283 27 2 0 Data Literacy and Visualization https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/data-literacy-and-visualization/ Sun, 18 Oct 2020 00:00:51 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=285 285 27 1 0 Smart, fast, and protected https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/smart-fast-and-protected/ Tue, 03 Nov 2020 14:06:05 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=363 Privacy and ownership Privacy and ownership of information in the United States is protected through a series of ruling issued by the judicial system.  To date, the United States has not proactively protected its citizen's privacy since the IV Amendment was published.  There is no regulatory body created, supported, or endorsed by the US government that currently governs behavior on the internet, or use of the internet.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the internet as a service, but not behavior on the internet.  Some argue that this process prevents heavy-handed, invasive regulation of our free market economy[footnote]Federal Communications Commission. (2018, June 11). The FCC Restoring Internet Freedom Order [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/SCYztq0ua3Y[/footnote]. In 2018, the FCC enacted the Restoring Internet Freedom Order that states it requires more transparency of internet service providers.  None of this addresses actions taking by those using the internet to engage in data collection.  The burden of privacy is placed on the private citizen internet user in the United States.  This places an undue burden on the private citizen as they may not have the tools, time, and resources to create a environment that protects their data. The European Union sought to address this disparity through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enacted on May 25th, 2018.  Article 13 and 14 of the GDPR itemize how the information controller (entity that has the data) must share their data collection policies clearly and openly.  It also addresses an individual's rights to the data collected from them.  Several advocacy organizations augmented this legal document with a plain language explanations of the GDPR,  and while not perfect, the efforts of governing and private entities demonstrate that protection and ownership of personal data is attainable.
    Fundamentally, once the public is aware of their rights, they are especially reluctant to forfeit them.

    Advocacy and protection

    Advocacy and protection in the United States is possible.  Using a compilation of free tools and information, a private citizen has the ability to minimize access and exploitation of their data.  The 2019 State of EdTech Privacy Report from Common Sense Media stated, "fundamentally once the public is aware of their rights, they are especially reluctant to forfeit them."[footnote]Common Sense Media. (2019). 2019 State of edtech privacy report: Common sense privacy program. https://privacy.commonsense.org/content/resource/state-of-edtech-2019/cs-2019-state-of-edtech-privacy-report.pdf[/footnote]. Founded in 2003, the Tactile Tech Collective seeks to address gaps in education and awareness related to data privacy.  Past projects supported by this group include Me and My Shadow and Security in a Box.  Their current endeavor, entitled the Data Detox Kit is a multi-faceted project designed to support safer interactions in digital spaces.  By applying skills and tools in the Data Detox Kit, an individual can reduce their digital footprint and protect the data they must store online.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation also published a Surveillance Self-Defense Guide designed to build better security around a person's data. The Contract for the Web was launched in November 2018.  It was designed by over 80 organizations from around the globe and is being adopted continually.  This framework of 9 principles provides language and an action plan for governments, (private and public) companies, and citizens to build equitable access and civil engagement on the internet. Each of the principles is a broad goal with suggested actions to meet each goal.  For instance, Principle 1 states everyone should have access to the internet and then it itemizes how that access can be supported through: [footnote]Contract for the Web. (2019). Principle 1 In Contract for the Web https://contractfortheweb.org/[/footnote]
    1. [S]etting and tracking policy goals
    2. [D]esigning robust policy-frameworks and transparent enforcement institutions to achieve such goals
    3. [E]nsuring systematically excluded populations have effective paths towards meaningful internet access
    How each government, company, and citizen acts on these principles is not specified.  This freedom allows each entity to work with existing political, cultural, and technological frameworks which can facilitate quicker and universal adoption.  However, that also allows for an uneven adoption and implementation of the principles.  Principle 9 seeks to address that potential pitfall by calling on individual citizen to advocate and engage with the content adoption process. [footnote]Principle 9 In Contract for the Web https://contractfortheweb.org/[/footnote]]]>     363 30 3 0     Chapter 1 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-1__trashed/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:42:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-1/ 18 17 1 0 Information Literacy https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/information-literacy__trashed/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:52:07 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/information-literacy/ 21 20 4 0 Digital Literacy https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/digital-literacy__trashed/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:52:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/digital-literacy/ 23 20 5 0 Privacy Literacy https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/privacy-literacy__trashed/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:53:28 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/privacy-literacy/ 25 20 12 0 Writing OERs Insert HERE https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/writing-oers-insert-here__trashed/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 21:00:45 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/writing-oers-insert-here/ 28 27 2 0 Using the Wayback Machine to Check for Page Changes https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-the-wayback-machine-to-check-for-page-changes__trashed/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 21:27:42 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-the-wayback-machine-to-check-for-page-changes/ Wayback Machine and search for a page or site. Here we'll search for the front page of the White House site: Figure 83 The Wayback Machine doesn't archive every page, but they do archive an awful lot of them. Whether a page is archived will often depend on if a page was heavily linked to in the past, or if it was published by a site that the Wayback Machine tracks. In the case of the White House, of course, both these things are true and we have a near perfect history of the site. Figure 84 Let's go back in time all the way to 1999. When we select 1999, we see a calendar. Each circle indicates a snapshot made of the site. The green and blue indicate whether the page was a "redirect"--an issue beyond the scope of this article. Click on a date to see a "snapshot" of the page on that date. Here we see a snapshot of the site from January 1999, at the tail end of the Clinton administration. Figure 85 Sites will be browsable, to some extent, so go ahead and click on the links. Advanced functionality, such as search interfaces and interactive content, will usually not work.

     ]]>     176 17 6 0     Citation Rates https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/citation-rates__trashed/ Thu, 15 Feb 2018 14:39:36 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/citation-rates/ list of citation averages from 2011, but note that citations follow a power law, and any average here is far above the median.]]> 181 17 7 0 Searching TV Transcripts with the Internet Archive https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/searching-tv-transcripts-with-the-internet-archive__trashed/ Fri, 17 Feb 2017 16:33:23 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/searching-tv-transcripts-with-the-internet-archive/ Internet Archive allows you to search the captions of major news programs that aired after 2009, making it possible to find statements that may have aired on TV but not in print. As an example, consider this video that seems to show Donald Trump speaking about a picture of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (a Muslim tradition) as a "sea of love." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNiK26RGcF8 There are plenty of reasons to doubt this is an authentic video. It has a low view count given its content; it's on a YouTube channel that generally features jokes, not political content; the lighting on that picture is weird; and if you have heard Trump speak about his inauguration, you probably heard him use these same terms. The likelihood is that someone has doctored a video of him talking about the inauguration and made it look like a commentary on Mecca. But if we want to prove that definitively, we should probably find the original video. Here we're going to go over to the Internet Archive's TV News Archive and search for "tremendous sea of love," and right there, the second result, is the video that has been altered, along with the ABC chyron: seaoflove Figure 95 If you play this video, you'll see President Trump talking about the crowds at his own inauguration: someone clearly altered the picture the president was pointing to in the other video. There's also a specialized Trump collection on the site if you just want to search the clips in which Donald Trump plays a part. We can use this for other things as well. For example, we might want to fact-check whether Mike Pence agreed with the "Muslim Ban" during the later part of the campaign. So you can check that by going into the Trump archive and typing "pence muslim ban." pence Figure 96 When you click on that, you'll see Mike Pence agreeing directly with that particular language. Why is this important? So much of what our leaders communicate is now over the air with very little written record. Resources on sites like these are not indexed by Google, but are freely accessible and provide irreplaceable functionality for fact-checking civic discourse. Keep them in mind, especially if you are specifically looking for video content or if general news searches have failed.]]> 191 17 7 0 Using Buzzsumo to Find Highly Viral Stories https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-buzzsumo-to-find-highly-viral-stories__trashed/ Thu, 02 Mar 2017 18:11:31 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-buzzsumo-to-find-highly-viral-stories/ Facebook and Twitter feeds are one good source for such stories, but sometimes you'll want to get outside your filter bubble and see the stories that other folks are sharing. There are a number of tools you can use to find highly viral stories. Buzzsumo is one simple to use option. Here's how to find stories to investigate using it. First, go to Buzzsumo.com. Figure 106 Put in a search term, like "cancer." Buzzsumo will return the most shared stories on the topic of cancer. You can filter them by recency. Here, we look at just stories in the past week. Figure 107 Facebook engagements is not purely about shares--it encompasses other actions as well--but it is a good metric of how viral the story is. The free version of Buzzsumo only lets you view the top results and limits the number of searches you can perform per day, but it's often enough access to enable you to find an interesting story to fact-check.  I like this "Cancer Cure Genius Silenced by Medical Mafia" one--its inflammatory language is a good indicator that the claims in it are likely to be overstated. Figure 108 If you are writing your claim analysis up for the Digital Polarization Initiative, make a note of the engagements, as they are often a good proxy for the influence of the story on the general public. Thirty thousand engagements on this story makes it one of the top cancer stories of the week and one well worth looking into.      ]]> 207 17 5 0 Finding Old Newspaper Articles https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-old-newspaper-articles__trashed/ Fri, 19 May 2017 21:23:12 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/finding-old-newspaper-articles/ Google's and Bing's news search tabs, older news can be more difficult to retrieve. Many options for retrieving old news entail paying a subscription fee or per article cost, which is a bit expensive for a person just checking up on a story. In this section, we'll show you how to use news archives to check on the existence of articles at no cost.

    A Sample Problem

    President Trump claimed the investigation to see if his campaign had colluded with Russia was a "witch hunt." No sooner had he said that than this snapshot of an article appeared in my feed:   Newspaper article saying "Nixon Sees Witch-hunt" Figure 119 By now you should know it's trivially easy to fake something that looks like a snapshot of an old headline. So how do we find out if this article actually ran? Our first instinct might be to go to the Washington Post to see if they have this article. That's not a bad instinct, but in this case the headline clearly ran somewhere else other than the Post--the Washington Post doesn't tag it's own articles as coming from the "Washington Post." This particular headline was run in another paper. So we want to do a broad search across many historical American papers. When reporters do this, they most often use tools such as LexisNexis and ProQuest, which are usually unavailable to average people. We'll have to make do with sources that are searchable from the web. There are three major web searchable archives in the U.S.:
    • Google's Historical Newspapers: news.google.com/newspapers
    • Newspapers.com: newspapers.com
    • Newsbank's Newspaper Archive: newspaperarchive.com
    Google offers complete articles. The other two offer snippets unless you pay them money, but snippets are enough for this sort of task. So we construct our search. It's just a variation on the "site:" syntax we've used elsewhere.
    Nixon Sees Witch Hunt (site:newspapers.com OR site:news.google.com/newspapers OR site:newspaperarchive.com)
    And we get back a time-stamped result from the LA Times, with a date (in 1973) that looks promising: Screenshot of search results with positive hit on story on top Figure 120 Note that "Nixon sees witch-hunt Sears insiders say." What's that "Sears" bit about? It becomes evident when we click through and look at the page: Figure 121 You can see above we've circled the headline. The free version only offers this blurry "thumbnail" image of the page, but it's enough to spot the headline. It also makes obvious where the "Sears" came from--the text here was automatically generated by computer and must have included the Sears ad next to as part of the headline. If we scroll down the page, we can see enough to confirm that this article as I saw it in my feed was correct, even though the automatic character recognition has messed up a lot of the words:
    Part l-A-Sun., July 22, 1973 I Nixon Sees 'Witch-Hunt; Sears Insiders Say Prices Effective through Tuesday, July 24 BY BOB WOODWARD and CARL BERNSTEIN Thft Washington Post WASHINGTON President Nixon and his top aides believe that the Senate 'Watergate hearings are unfair and constitute a "political witch-hunt," according to White House sources. The sources, said, that the President .in recent weeks had expressed bitterness and deep hostility toward the two-.morith-old proceedings.
    We have enough here to say that this ran in the LA Times in July 1973. And if we really wanted to see a clean version of the article, we could subscribe to the service and grab a better image, which may be what the original tweeter did.

    Checking Cited Headlines

    Here's another paragraph, this time from the New York Times, that claims the LA Times ran a derogatory headline when the first female commercial pilot at a major airline got her wings.
    There were no female pilots at the biggest airlines until 1973, when American Airlines hired the first, Bonnie Tiburzi Caputo. In a reminder of how times have changed, that news was reported in The Los Angeles Times under the headline, “Airline Pilot to Fly by Seat of Panties.”
    The New York Times is a very reliable paper, and in this case we probably don't need to check the article title. But let's try anyway with the same sort of search as above:
    Airline Pilot to Fly by Seat of Panties (site:newspapers.com OR site:news.google.com/newspapers OR site:newspaperarchive.com)
    Note that because the optical character recognition sometimes transcribes things wrong, we don't put quotes around the search phrase, at least at first. When we put it in, we're in luck--we can see the headline in the blurb: Figure 122 We might also search for a type of headline. For instance, a key point of the critics of global warming is the statement that scientists in the 1970s feared "global cooling" instead of global warming; the point being that the global warming scare is one in a long series of bad guesses to be later thrown away. Can we compare the number of global cooling and global warming stories in the 1970s? We execute a search for:
    global cooling (site:newspapers.com) 1975
    and we get an article from 1975, which talks of some sensationalist claims of a coming ice age. But when the reporter talks to a climatologist, the tone is different:
    But Lawson prefers to speak in terms of the following probabilities: —In the long run, over thousands of years, there is probability of an ice age. —In the next few decades, there is a probability of a warming trend. —In the next few years, the probability is that global cooling will continue dbownward to 19th century levels.
    (Note: For some reason newspaper archive searches react badly to date filters, which is why we just put 1975 in plain text.) If we search for "global warming" in 1975, we get this quote in the January 29, 1975 edition of the Orlando Sentinel from a government scientist:
    "After the next decade or so will come a warming trend, both because of increased CO2 in the atmosphere and thermal pollution by power plants and so on. In the 21st century, man's activities will predominate over nature." J. Murray Mitchell, senior research climatologist, Environmental Data Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
    While one would need much more evidence to settle the question of whether scientists on the whole feared global cooling or global warming in the 1970s, it's clear enough that many scientists expected warming due to man's activities even then. If you're looking at sharing an article that says that "cooling" was the big 1970s worry, you might want to sit on it before reposting.  ]]>     229 17 7 0     Using the Facebook Live Map to Find Breaking Coverage https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-the-facebook-live-map-to-find-breaking-coverage__trashed/ Sat, 18 Mar 2017 02:31:35 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/using-the-facebook-live-map-to-find-breaking-coverage/ 231 17 7 0 Image Descriptions https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/image-descriptions__trashed/ Sat, 02 Sep 2017 00:14:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/image-descriptions/ While we try to list all figures in order, edits to the book may result in figure descriptions going out of order. For best results, always access the description from the caption link. Figure headings are linked to themselves. Clicking on a link will merely scroll it to the top of the page.

    FIGURE 1

    A tweet from Twitter user @RonHogan that reads “The Nazis murdered Senator Schumer’s grandmother and most of her children. Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally.” It is in response to a Donald Trump tweet. It has been retweeted over 55,000 times. End.

    FIGURE 2

    A story with the headline “MORE HYPOCRISY: Obama banned all Iraqi Refugees for 6 Months in 2011– Liberals said nothing!” over a picture of protests against President Trump’s ban. End.

    FIGURE 3

    A set of DuckDuckGo search results. The top results are from fact-checking sites Snopes and Politifact. End.

    FIGURE 4

    A segment of a President Trump speech that reads “We must protect those who protect us. The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56 percent from the year before.” End.

    FIGURE 5

    DuckDuckGo search results. The top search result is an article from the Washington Post fact-checker and highlighted text matches our query. End.

    FIGURE 6

    A story with the headline “Report: US Government Ethics director approved controversial tweets” over a picture of President Trump. End.

    FIGURE 7

    Text from the article with sentences mentioning the Daily Dot highlighted. If you read carefully, the Daily Dot (another publication) is the source of each fact (e.g. “the Daily Dot reported that Shaub sent an email” etc.). End.

    FIGURE 8

    A screenshot of a page from the publication Network World. There are ten stories at the bottom of the page, but in small print under each one is an indication that they were paid for by an advertiser. The one in the upper left corner reads "Lawmakers Concerned About Insane Military Scope Released to Public" and is sponsored by "ZeroTac Tactical Scopes.” End.

    FIGURE 9

    An enlargement of the ZeroTac technical scope "article" link, showing the space below it where it indicates the sponsor. End.

    FIGURE 10

    An article from InfoWorld on the topic of "Integrated Systems" by a man named Paul Miller. But above the article is small text that reads "Sponsored," and near the top of the page is tiny text that indicates the sponsor is Hewlett Packard, a company that sells integrated systems. End.

    FIGURE 11

    A screenshot of a New York Times webpage with many items on it. In the middle column of items, small text reading "News from AP and Reuters" tops the column. End.

    FIGURE 12

    New York Times article with headline "UK Stock Market Hits Record as Manufacturers Win Business." Where a reporter's name might usually appear under the headline reads in small print, "by the Associated Press." End.

    FIGURE 13

    An article titled "Do You Support Patriotic Bikers Defending Trump's Inauguration?" The article says that a source named Right Alerts Polls broke the story, but does not provide a link. End.

    FIGURE 14

    Screenshot of the result of selecting and right-clicking. The term "Rights Alerts Polls" is highlighted and a context menu shows. The context menu offers an option to "Search Google for 'Rights Alerts Polls'". Note that you could do this without using the context menu; just copy and paste the phrase into to a Google search box. End.

    FIGURE 15

    A Google search for "Right Alerts Polls bikers" reveals the article the other page cited as a source. It is the top result. End.

    FIGURE 16

    The extended quote from the page reads, "These libtards need to shut the hell up. This is not only a biker event, but it is a Trump Supporters event. We are many and varied but we unite as one." It is said to be a quote on a Facebook page organizing the event. End.

    FIGURE 17

    Screenshot of selecting "shut the hell up. This is not only a biker event." The context menu offers an option to "Search Google for 'shut the hell up. This is not only a biker event'". Note that you could do this without using the context menu; just copy and paste the phrase into to a Google search box. End.

    FIGURE 18

    The Google search results for "shut the hell up. This is not only a biker event." The second result (which the screenshot calls attention to) has a web address on Facebook and is in the subdirectory of "events." End.

    FIGURE 19

    Facebook page showing only 1,800 have indicated that they are going to the biker event. In addition, only 8,000 are interested, and the page has only been shared with 10,000 people total. End.

    FIGURE 20

    A photo shared through ABC News showing a parked car boxed in by shopping carts with the headline, “Shopper Upset over Double-Parked Car.” End.

    FIGURE 21

    The top two Google search results for “shopper upset over double-parked car abc action news.” End.

    FIGURE 22

    The Google search results for “shopping carts double-parked portland or.” End.

    FIGURE 23

    A WGME article explaining the story behind a picture of a double-parked car surrounded by shopping carts. End.

    FIGURE 24

    Google search results for “Matthew Mills” with one result featuring the caption, “this guy got a lesson in parking.” End.

    FIGURE 25

    Facebook search result for “‘got a lesson in parking’ Matthew Mills” showing a public post by Matthew Mills. End.

    FIGURE 26

    Google Image search results for “parking revenge carts.” End.

    FIGURE 27

    A Reddit post titled “Great Parking Job” showing a picture of a double-parked car surrounded by shopping carts. End.

    FIGURE 28

    A tweet by user @NinjaEconomics that reads “On January 3, the #GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth in Q4 2016 is 2.9%” and shows a chart about the GDP forecast. End.

    FIGURE 29

    A tweet by @unsmokable that reads “the life of a national geographic photographer” and shows a photo of a man standing on volcanic terrain and looking through a camera situated on a tripod. The photographer’s shoes and tripod have flames around them. End.

    FIGURE 30

    A closer crop of the tweet by user @unsmokable showing the results when a viewer right-clicks/control-clicks on the image. End.

    FIGURE 31

    Results from a Google reverse image search on the photo from Twitter user @unsmokable’s tweet. End.

    FIGURE 32

    A Reddit post titled, “In the heat of the moment” with comments debating over the photo of the photographer with flaming shoes and a tripod. End.

    FIGURE 33

    An article by Katie Hosmer titled “Hot Lava Sets Adventurous Photographer’s Feet on Fire.” End.

    FIGURE 34

    A close up of the article by Katie Hosmer showing the text “via [PetaPixel].” End.  

    FIGURE 35

    Text from the PetaPixel site quoting the photographer of the lava photo, reading, “The photo is real, but the flames are not the result of spontaneous combustion” going on to explain that the photographer used an accelerant to start the flames. End.

    FIGURE 36

    Close up of the PetaPixel site showing the results when a reader right-clicks/control-clicks on the Hawaii News Now link. End.

    FIGURE 37

    The Google results from searching “Hawaii News Now.” End.

    FIGURE 38

    A photo Twitter users attributed to National Geographic, which depicts what appears to be a photographer being attacked by a bird. End.

    FIGURE 39

    A Google reverse image search result that suggests the best search term to find our original source is “birds attacking people.” End.

    FIGURE 40

    A list of pages including images that match the reverse searched image. The first webpage is titled, “Dangerous Birds - Top 10 Birds That Could Kick Your Ass.” All of the pages appear to discuss bird attacks. End.

    FIGURE 41

    An expanded settings list for Google reverse image search that can be accessed by clicking “Tools” and “Custom range…” These settings can be altered to filter out newer photos by modifying the dates that will be included in the results list. End.

    FIGURE 42

    A new reverse image search, with a custom date of Dec 31, 2009 to exclude newer photos, such as those which may have been virally propagated under false pretenses. Now, our suggested search term is “bird.” End.

    FIGURE 43

    The result page of our reverse image search, in which the title of the third website, PentaxForums, reads, “Got too close the the hawk :(,“ and the description reads: “And as the poster said, these are trained…so its more like the camera man pissed off the hunter rather than the bird itself. Rest of the photos. Kazakhstan Eagle…” End.

    FIGURE 44

    An article from the Press titled, “Kazakhstan Eagle Hunt,” which features our image. End.

    FIGURE 45

    A list of Google search results of the search term, “stockton ca local affiliate.” We will select the fourth listing, CBS Sacramento. End.

    FIGURE 46

    CBS Sacramento search with “teenage girls black lives matter” in the search bar. End.

    FIGURE 47

    A photograph depicting a group of photographers running from a bear. End.

    FIGURE 48

    A photograph in which a man in a body of water is hiding with a camera in a swan hunting tent. End.

    FIGURE 49

    A photograph showing a section of a city empty and in shambles with what appears to be debris cluttering the buildings and streets. End.

    FIGURE 50

    A photograph depicting a large stone ram on top of a semi-truck with the “OVER-SIZE” label on its front bumper. The ram appears to be more than three times the height of the semi-truck. End.

    FIGURE 51

    A screenshot of the Baltimore Gazette, a site created to spread misinformation. The headline reads, “Clinton Received Debate Questions Week Before Debate, According to Sources.” End.

    FIGURE 52

    A Google search tip demonstrating how to exclude a specific site from search results. The string used in the example is "baltimoregazette.com -site:baltimoregazette.com". This would search all sites except for "baltimoregazette.com." End.

    FIGURE 53

    The homepage of the Pacific Justice Institute. End.

    FIGURE 54

    Google search results for “www.pacificjustice.org -site:www.pacificjustice.org.” The search omits the site www.pacificjustice.org and brings up a Wikipedia article as the first result. End.

    FIGURE 55

    WHOIS search result on the ICANN interface for “motherjones.com.”  It displays the website's owner, Foundation for National Progress, and its contact information. End.

    FIGURE 56

    WHOIS search result on the ICANN interface for “baltimoregazette.com”. The website’s owner is listed as Domains by Proxy. End.

    FIGURE 57

    A close up of baltimoregazette.com’s date of creation from WHOIS on the ICANN interface, which is listed as July of 2015. End.

    FIGURE 58

    An article published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Medicine. End.

    FIGURE 59

    A Google search for “plos medicine impact factor,” which indicates in the knowledge panel its impact factor is 13.585 as of 2015. End.

    FIGURE 60

    An article published in the Journal of Obesity and Weight-loss Medication whose impact factor we want to investigate. End.

    FIGURE 61

    A Google search for “Journal of Obesity and Weight-loss Medication impact factor” whose impact factor does not appear in a knowledge panel. End.

    FIGURE 62

    The Google Scholar search results for “David Bann,” which features his many publications in lifespan obesity patterns. Most of the publications we find are from the last ten years. End.

    FIGURE 63

    The AnonHQ article titled, “It’s Official: European Scientific Journal Concludes 9/11 was a Controlled Demolition.” The article has over 14,000 views and was published on September 11, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 64

    The Google Scholar search results for “Robert Korol,” who appears to have published architectural research in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. End.

    FIGURE 65

    The Google Scholar search results for “Jennie Connor 2016,” which shows her well-cited publications. Her 2017 article received 12 citations, and two articles were cited by 23 and 36 others. End.

    FIGURE 66

    The Google search results for “addiction impact factor,” which we find in the knowledge panel to be 4.145 as of 2010. End.

    FIGURE 67

    The Google search result for “nih alcohol and cancer.” The fifth result from the NIH is described as “A fact sheet that summarizes the evidence linking alcohol consumption to the risk of various cancers…” End.

    FIGURE 68

    The Google search result for “www.cancer.gov -site:www.cancer.gov.” This search includes all sites other than www.cancer.gov. We see that five results down, the National Health Institute, an organization we trust, is talking about the National Cancer Institute. End.

    FIGURE 69

    A tweet by Twitter user @MichaelESmith that reads, “Bullshit! Aztec society collapsed in 1519 fr. Cortes & smallpox. Salmonella in 1540 was far too late. And the painting is European fantasy.” Smith is responding to a tweet claiming that salmonella poisoning may have contributed to the fall of the Aztec civilization. End.

    FIGURE 70

    A tweet by @pixelatedboat featuring a photo of two men that reads, “This is Woodward and Bernstein. Nixon called them the enemy. They proved that no president is above the law. #NotTheEnemy.” End.

    FIGURE 71

    A tweet by user @RepJackKimble that reads, "Why have the wars cost so much under Obama? Check the budgets, Bush fought 2 wars without costing taxpayers a dime." End.

    FIGURE 72

    The Twitter bio of user @RepJackKimble reading, "Congressman from CA's 54th District. JackKimble.com Author of Profiles in Courageousness amzn.to/1ER7SeU E pluribus unum (1 Nation under God)." End.

    FIGURE 73

    The Twitter bio of user @jasoninthehouse reading, "United States Congressman (UT-3). Chairman, Oversight & Government Reform. Tweets come from me, not my staff." The user's name has a small blue seal next to his name, indicating that his identity is verified by Twitter. End.

    FIGURE 74

    The header of Twitter user @PerseusJackson, strategically using the background image to give the impression that it is a verified account by Twitter. End.

    FIGURE 75

    A video showing how to hover over a Twitter user's verification seal to check if it is legitimate. End.

    FIGURE 76

    The Twitter bio of user @MinervaSchools reading, "Minerva offers a unique undergraduate education for the brightest, most motivated students in the world." End.

    FIGURE 77

    Twitter user @MinervaSchool's tweetstream from February showing two tweets, the number of followers the account has, and the number of tweets the account has made. End.

    FIGURE 78

    A tweet by user @mcpli mocking the screenshot of a supposed tweet by user @DanPatrick which reads, "MARRIAGE= ONE MAN & ONE MAN. Enough of these activist judges. FAVORITE if you agree. I know the silent majority out there is with us!" End.

    FIGURE 79

    A fake tweet generated by the author of this text that shows user @BarackObama tweeting, "Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers is AMAZING! You should read it. (Thanks Mike!)" End.

    FIGURE 80

    The Politiwhoops archive of deleted tweets by user @realDonaldTrump showing two tweets made and deleted by the account in February of 2017. End.

    FIGURE 81

    A video showing how to view the cached version of @realDonaldTrump's Twitter page by searching the account through Google, hovering over the drop down arrow next to the first result's URL, and selecting "Cached." End.

    FIGURE 82

    Google's cache information of @realDonaldTrump's Twitter page, reading "This is Google's cache of https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Feb 15, 2017 14:46:56 GMT." End.

    FIGURE 83

    The search bar of the Wayback Machine with the search term "whitehouse.gov" typed in. End.

    FIGURE 84

    The Wayback Machine's search results for "whitehouse.gov" displaying a calendar of the months of January, February, March, and April of 1999 with blue and green dots encasing some of the calendar's dates. End.

    FIGURE 85

    The page of whitehouse.gov from January 1999 showing links to White House documents, the contents of the website, Radio Addresses of the President, Executive Orders, Photographs, a database to all government sites, The Decleration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, a subscription list, and press releases. End.

    FIGURE 86

    An ABCNews.co article entitled, "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally" and showing a publication date of November 11, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 87

    An ABCNews.co article entitled, "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally" and showing a publication date of March 24, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 88

    An ABCNews.co article entitled, "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally" and showing a publication date of June 16, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 89

    An ABCNews.co article entitled, "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally" and showing a publication date of Septembe 11, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 90

    The first Google result for "site:abcnews.com.co/donald-trump-protester-speaks-out-i-was-paid-to-protest/" showing the abcnews.co article with a publication date of March 26, 2016. End.

    FIGURE 91

    A tweet by user @cbquist posting a quote supposedly said by Carl Sagan, which states, "I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time--when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness." End.

    FIGURE 92

    The top Google Books search results for "clutching our crystals and nervously consulting." End.

    FIGURE 93

    An excerpt of Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World, found through Google Books, where Sagan provides the quote that was attributed to him by Twitter user @cbquist. End.

    FIGURE 94

    The publication information of Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World showing a publication date of 1996. End.

    FIGURE 95

    Internet Archive's TV News Archive search for "tremendous sea of love." The second result is our video, and I have circled the video, which is from ABC. End.

    FIGURE 96

    A search for "pence muslim ban" in the Trump archive, which shows the text of a video in which Mike Pence, when asked if he agrees with the Muslim ban, responded, "I do." End.

    FIGURE 97

    Google search result for "how many men landed on the moon" in which a knowledge panel answers the query via Quora with "12 men." End.

    FIGURE 98

    Google search result for "last man to land on the moon" in which a knowledge panel pulls text from a Wikipedia article and puts the name "Cernan" in bold as the answer to the question. End.

    FIGURE 99

    Google search result for "how many apostles were there" in which a knowledge panel replies "12 apostles" via Quora. End.

    FIGURE 100

    Google search result for "how old was lee harvey oswold at the time of the assassination" in which a knowledge panel puts in bold 18, 22, and 24, which are numbers from Oswold's date of birth, date of death, and the date of the assassination via a Wikipedia article. None are an answer to the Googled question. End.

    FIGURE 101

    Google search result for "Presidents in the kkk" in which a knowledge panel pulls the names of several presidents from The Trent Online. End.

    FIGURE 102

    Google search result for "is obama planning martial law" in which a knowledge panel pulls a quote from newstarget.com claiming that Obama is in fact planning martial law. End.

    FIGURE 103

    Google search result for "why did lee harvey oswold assassinate president kennedy" in which a knowledge panel pulls text from a site claiming that Oswold did not assassinate President Kennedy. End.

    FIGURE 104

    Google search result for "msg sensitvity" in which a knowledge panel pulls a list of symptoms from Healthline. End.

    FIGURE 105

    Google search result for "msg dangers" in which a knowledge panel brings up Mercola, which claims that msg causes brain damage, such as Alzheimer's disease and learning disabilities. End.

    FIGURE 106

    Homepage of Buzzsumo, which features a search bar on its main page. End.

    FIGURE 107

    Buzzsumo results for "cancer," showing two articles and their Facebook engagements, which is meant to measure the virality of the articles on Facebook. End.

    FIGURE 108

    Buzzsumo results for "cancer" scrolled down a few articles. One article, "Royal Rife: Cancer Cure Genius Silenced by Medical Mafia" uses particularly inflammatory language. End.

    FIGURE 109

    Domain Dossier search bar with "coca-cola.com" typed in and a list of databases it searches with boxes next to them you click to include results from. End.

    FIGURE 110

    Domain Dossier results for the search on "coca-cola.com" in which the registrant's name, organization, street, and city are all available for public access. End.

    FIGURE 111

    Domain Dossier search results for “protrump45.com,” showing that the site’s owner is masked. End.

    FIGURE 112

    Domain Dossier search results showing the registrant of a site’s name as Domains by Proxy, LLC, a service that masks the real owners of sites. End.

    FIGURE 113

    Google search results for “was 9/11 a hoax” in which the top five sites confirm the conspiracy that 9/11 was faked. End.

    FIGURE 114

    Google search results for “are we eating too much protein” in which Google pulls a knowledge panel from Huffington Post, and the top site promotes veganism. End.

    FIGURE 115

    Promoted tweet from user @SafeMedicine urging us to tweet our senators against our exposure to unsafe medicine. We can tell it’s promoted by the gray text that reads “Promoted” below the “reply,” “retweet,” and “like” functions. End.

    FIGURE 116

    Twitter page for user @SafeMedicine, which features its website name, safemedicine.org. End.

    FIGURE 117

    The homepage of safemedicine.org, which reveals the name of the organization, The Partnership for Safe Medicines. End.

    FIGURE 118

    An article about The Partnership for Safe Medicines on the Northwest Public Radio site titled, “Nonprofit Working to Block Drug Imports Has Ties to Pharma Lobby.” End.

    FIGURE 119

    The headline of a newspaper article from 1973 titled “Nixon Sees ‘Witch-Hunt’ Insiders Say” with the Washington Post’s name below the headline. End.

    FIGURE 120

    Google search results for “Nixon Sees Witch Hunt (site: newspapers.com OR site: google.news.com/newspapers OR site: newspaperarchive.com)” to only search on these three sites. The first result, from the LA Times, mentions our headline in the description and is from 1973. End.

    FIGURE 121

    The newspaper article from the first result of our last Google search, which features our headline “Nixon Sees ‘Witch-Hunt’ Insiders Say.” End.

    FIGURE 122

    Google search results for “Airline Pilot to Fly by Seat of Panties (site:newspapers.com OR site:news.google.com/newspapers OR site:newspaperarchive.com),” in which the article appears in the first result. End. ]]>     233 17 7 0     “Fact-Checking Sites” Image Descriptions https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-five-descriptions__trashed/ Wed, 13 Sep 2017 22:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-five-descriptions/ 235 17 7 0 “How to Use Previous Work” Image Descriptions https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-four-image-descriptions__trashed/ Wed, 13 Sep 2017 22:04:00 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/chapter-four-image-descriptions/ Figure 4.1 Figure 4.2 Figure 4.3 Figure 4.4

    FIGURE 4.1

    A story with the headline "MORE HYPOCRISY: Obama banned all Iraqi Refugees for 6 Months in 2011-- Liberals said nothing!" over a picture of protests against President Trump's ban. End.

    FIGURE 4.2

    A set of DuckDuckGo search results. The top results are from fact-checking sites Snopes and Politifact. End.

    FIGURE 4.3

    A segment of a President Trump speech that reads, "We must protect those who protect us. The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56 percent from the year before." End.

    FIGURE 4.4

    DuckDuckGo search results. The top search result is an article from the Washington Post fact-checker and we can see the highlighted text that matches our query. End.]]>     237 17 7 0     “Go Upstream to Find the Source” Image Descriptions https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/go-upstream-to-find-the-source-image-descriptions__trashed/ Wed, 13 Sep 2017 22:58:18 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/go-upstream-to-find-the-source-image-descriptions/ Figure 7.1 Figure 7.2

    FIGURE 7.1

    A story with the headline, "Report: US Government Ethics director approved controversial tweets" over a picture of President Trump. End.

    FIGURE 7.2

    Text from the article with sentences mentioning Daily Dot highlighted. If you read carefully, the Daily Dot (another publication) is the source of each fact, e.g. "the Daily Dot reported that Shaub sent an email", etc. End.]]>     239 17 7 0     TESTING import https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/__trashed/ Thu, 22 Oct 2020 18:54:14 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=chapter&p=314 314 27 3 0 TESTING IMPORT [01_chapter_l_hoelter_edited_3_051617_fixed] https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/01_chapter_l_hoelter_edited_3_051617_fixed__trashed/ Thu, 22 Oct 2020 18:55:00 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/01_chapter_l_hoelter_edited_3_051617_fixed/ Introduction to statistical literacy Lynette Hoelter Let’s “set the stage” for thinking about data encountered in every- day media. With just a few key statistical concepts on your tool belt, your mindset can shift from simply accepting numbers as fact to questioning the data. For anyone who is afraid that this chapter will be math heavy – be reassured, it is not! Quantitative literacy, quantitative reasoning, statistical literacy, and numeracy have become buzzwords in educational circles from K-12 through undergraduate training. Used interchangeably here, they all represent a core group of skills necessary to fully participate in today’s information-rich society. Some have suggested nuances leading to unique meanings of each term, but whatever the buzzword, the goal is to boost high school students’ abilities and comfort level with quantitative information.

    Defining statistical literacy

    For the purpose of this chapter, statistical literacy refers to a mindset or set of skills that are used in everyday life. That is, while some concepts might stem from the fields of math and science, the use of those ideas is equally, if not more, important. Statistical literacy, then, is the learning and using of quantitative skills within a particular context. Quantitative reasoning skills include:

    » the ability to read and interpret a chart or graph;

    » calculating percentages;

    » working within a scientific model;

    » evaluating the data on which arguments are based and using data in making one’s own decisions and arguments;

    » knowing what kinds of data might be useful in answering particular questions.

      “Now more than ever, students need the intellectual power to recognize societal problems; ask good questions and develop robust investigations into them; consider possible solutions and consequences; separate evidence-based claims from parochial opinions; and communicate and act upon what they learn” (National Center for the Social Studies 2013, 6). The overall goal is to understand and critically evaluate the numbers encountered as part of everyday life.  

    The relationship between statistics and statistical literacy

    There are two primary ways instructors teach statistics: with a focus on formulas and arithmetic or with a focus on key concepts and their applications. A quick scan of popular high school and college-level statistics textbooks shows a focus on formulas and arithmetic to be most common. Students often get overwhelmed by the math and focus only on formulas and calculations. Unfortunately, when they leave the course, they may not remember much about the analyses they did. It is difficult for instructors and students to overcome this mindset – even when students know exams are open book/open note and that their interpretations count more than their calculations, the tendency is still to grab on to the formulas because they are, in a sense, more concrete. Logic and application are not always straightforward. There are right and wrong answers in the number-crunching, formulas, and arithmetic, and sometimes instructors and students are most secure in that arena. I would argue, however, that deep learning and statistical literacy can take place when students are introduced to and asked to make decisions about statistical tests and interpret the results beyond merely repeating the numbers back. It is exactly these kinds of skills that can be incorporated across the curriculum as well. That said, fundamental concepts from statistics are important in asking and answering the questions posed in quantitative reasoning. Such topics include more theoretical ideas, and the next section defines and provides examples of each. The numbers and examples are completely made up, unless otherwise noted.  

    Statistics review

    A refresher about key topics is always helpful — whether it’s been awhile since you took statistics, you have nightmares about the class, or you never took a formal statistics course. The organization of the review here is based on the order in which topics are typically covered in texts.  

    Variables

      Sometimes the thing that is least on our minds when reading data and numbers is exactly what was measured, how, and by whom. In scientific language, the what is thought of as a variable. Asking how many students in a class are boys and how many are girls involves the variable gender. A variable is a trait that can vary from person to person (or across time or context) and about which you have or need information. If the classroom were made up entirely of boys, gender would not be a variable because it would not differentiate the students from each other.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Variables are important for two reasons.  

    » The media often present results as cause and effect.

    Thinking about exactly what variables were included (and what might have been left out) leads to questioning this assumption of causality.

    » Thinking more broadly about what was measured, how, and by whom brings forth questions about quality of the data and potential biases depending on the source of the data or the report.

      For example, a high school that says that 90% of its graduating seniors are going on to college seems impressive, until one digs further and finds that only 40% of the seniors are graduating or that going on to college in this case means that the student has reported an intention to attend college at some point in the future.   The way something is measured also affects the way that infor- mation can be used and presented later. Asking people about the highest degree they’ve earned, for instance, does not allow a re- searcher to later examine the impact on earnings of having some college but not finishing a degree, because the people who didn’t go to college and the people who did but didn’t earn a degree will be considered as having exactly the same level of education. A giant first step toward quantitative literacy is this understanding that the numbers we see represent variables, the data for which were mea- sured in a specific way, by a specific person, for a specific reason.  

    Percentages, rates, and percent change

    image   Without context, numbers can seem astonishingly large or shockingly small. Standardizing numbers using percentages or rates provides context around the numbers. A percentage is cal- culated by dividing some part by the overall whole — taking the number of correct answers on an exam and dividing by the total possible points — and then multiplying by 100 to turn it into a percentage that ranges from 0–100. For example, a student earning 40 points out of a possible 50 points on a science quiz looks like this:  

    40/50 = .8 and .8 x 100 = 80%

    image   Percentages provide a way to see how groups of very different sizes compare on a characteristic. Let’s say School A has 1,010 females taking AP Calculus and School B has 76. This should not necessarily lead to the assumption that School A is better at getting females into advanced math classes. Suppose that those schools had 2,400 and 130 students in AP Calculus, respective- ly. Using percentages, we would see that School A’s AP Calculus curriculum is 42% female while School B’s is 58% female.  

    School A

    1010/2400 = 42% of students taking AP Calculus are female.

    School B

    76/130 = 58% of students taking AP Calculus are female.

    image   Taking it one step further: if math ability was present and encour- aged in male and female students equally, we would expect each program to be close to 50% female. This example demonstrates that School A may not be supporting females in math as well as it could be, and School B is supporting females at least as much as males. The original 1,010 and 76 females did not provide any of the story that is possible by standardizing the numbers by con- verting them into percentages.   Similarly, rates are the number of occurrences of something divid- ed by the number of possibilities for the phenomenon to occur, typically multiplied by 1,000 (or 100,000 for large populations). Vio- lent crime rates reported for cities, then, are the number of crimes in a given time period divided by the number of people in the city at that same time, multiplied by 1,000. Like percentages, rates allow for the comparison of the chances of something happening base- don the size of the location in question.  

    Let’s say we know for a year:

    City A population = 5,000 City A violent crimes = 37

    37/5,000 = .0074 x 1,000 = 7.4

    This calculation tells us City A has a violent crime rate of 7.4 per 1,000 residents.

    image   Related to percentages are percentiles and percent change. Percentiles are often used for things like children’s heights and weights or standardized test scores. The number reported as the percentile is the percent of individuals above which that child’s height, weight, or score falls. Someone scoring in the 90th per- centile on the SAT would have a score above 90% of the people who took the test at that time. Percent change is a bit trickier because the denominator changes with each calculation. For ex- ample, a sale item marked 70% off is cheaper than the same item marked 50% + an additional 20% off because in the first case, the 70% is taken off the total purchase price but in the second case, the 50% is taken off first and then, using that amount as the new denominator, the 20% is taken off.  

    $100 x 70% = $70 off, then $100-$70 = $30

    $100 x 50% = $50 off, then $50 x 20% = $10, then $50-$10 = $40 An item that began as $100 in this example would be on

    sale for $30 and $40, respectively.

    image Likewise, large denominators mean that a small percent change can still produce a large number of people affected, whereas a large per- cent change to a small number will remain a small number.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Presenting numbers without context is a common strategy for making impressions, especially when defining issues as problems. Two thousand thefts sound like a lot, and a city might use that to push for more patrol officers on the streets. If the thefts were known to have occurred in a city of 450,000, though, people might be less panicked as they realize that just over four people in every 1,000 were victims of theft (especially if they can think of four people who leave their doors unlocked!).   The same “big deal” can be made by presenting a percentage without a sense of the base. Parma, Missouri, made the headlines when the election of its first black mayor caused 80% of the po- lice force to resign. While the headlines were technically correct (in fact, 83.3% had resigned), this percentage was based on five resignations out of the total six officers. The facts are the same, but the emotional reaction to the resignation of 80% of the offi- cers is different than knowing that five officers resigned.   Increases in percent change of contracting a particular disease often make headlines, especially when the percent change is large. It’s important to remember that if the starting number is small, even a large jump should not be enough to send everyone to his or her physician for the latest test for that disease. It might be a 100% change, but that could mean going from one person to two affected out of thousands. On the flip side, a 1% change in the prison population could mean significant overcrowding, especially if the population has grown at the same time, because the base is large. As students become more statistically literate, they’ll begin to think about the context in which numbers are presented (especially when there is no context at all), whether the right number was used as the denominator, and how large or small that denominator might be to begin.  

    Average/central tendency

    image   Most people know that when they hear about the average or central tendencies of something, they should think about who is represented by that statement. If Starbucks talks about the amount of coffee an average person drinks per week, it is useful to know whether they are reporting the average for their custom- ers or for a representative sample of adults in the U.S., as those two numbers could be quite different.   There are actually several types of averages in statistics and using one over the other can affect interpretation of results.  

    Mode – Sometimes it is only possible to know what trait or num- ber is the most common among a group of people or items – like knowing that July and August are the most popular birthday months in the U.S. or that blue is most commonly reported as a favorite color. The mode, or most commonly occurring value, is the only meaningful average that can be used for variables that are measured by putting people into categories (like race, gender, or religion).

     

    Median – The median, another type of average, is the value that splits a distribution of people or things exactly in half. The medi- an should be used for variables that result in ordered responses, such as one’s highest degree earned or questions answered on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree or by categories (e.g., age cohorts).

     

    Mean – Lastly, the mean represents the literal arithmetic average of something, like when someone asks everyone in a room for his or her age, adds those numbers up, and divides by the num-

    ber of people in the room. The value of each individual’s score is used when calculating the mean, therefore one or two extremely high or low scores can shift the resulting value.   While these seem straightforward, an agenda can be support- ed by choosing to present results using one average rather than another.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Being statistically literate involves asking which average is be- ing presented and whether using another might present a more accurate picture. Schools present their average scores on achieve- ment tests. Those schools where one or two students have a bad day and score very low are going to want to report the median; schools where one or two students score very high will likely want to report the mean to take advantage of those high scores. One should think about whether conclusions would be different de- pending which measure of central tendency was used.   Best practice is for both the mean and the median to be reported. Even better is when the average is accompanied by information about how spread out the scores in the distribution are (e.g., standard deviation). Suppose students are given an exam scored 0–100, and both the mean and the median come out to be 75. Knowing whether the scores clustered around 75 or were spread across the 100-point continuum provides more information about student learning than knowing the mean or median alone.  

    Sampling

    image   Sampling is confusing for a lot of people. Part of this confusion is because sampling is largely a theoretical concept. Part comes from the way terms are used in referring to sample designs seems contradictory to the use of those same terms in everyday language. It may be easy to convince people that results based on just a few people might not be reliable. What about a sam- ple of 100 people? Is that enough? Sometimes the harder battle is convincing them that a sample of 100 can actually be large enough to draw conclusions — but it is harder to get them to think about the fact that the size is not the only characteristic to consider when looking at a sample. A sample’s design, rather than its size, is the key characteristic in thinking about whether results can be meaningful for a larger group of people. That is, for a sample to represent some larger group, the individuals in a sample must be chosen at random.   These designs, called probability designs, range from something that could be as straightforward as putting everyone’s name in a hat and selecting a certain number (a simple random sample) to complex designs that involve multiple layers of selection, some of which include an element of chance and others that do not. The chance of selection is key. In reliable data reporting, the chance of selection, or probability design, is transparent and explained clearly to the reader.   If one wants to be able to say something about high school stu- dents in the U.S., one cannot simply take a random sample of the students in one’s school because that school is not likely repre- sentative of all high schools in the country. This is a very different definition of random than one students bring from everyday vocabulary. To some, random could have a negative connotation and implies no structure about who is in or out of the sample. In contrast, in sample selection, random or probability designs require the structure of having a list of possible sample units and using some rather systematic method for selecting individuals (or households or forest plots) from that list. Standing in the hallway and on the campus quad and choosing people at random does not qualify as a probability sample because there is no way to know the parameters of the population of interest, and selection is not usually as random as we think – one might be more likely to talk to those who look at the one collecting the data or the data collector might be more comfortable talking to women than to men. This type of sample is called a convenience sample and is one of the many non-probability designs. A non-probability sample is when the data collector uses his or her own judgment about who to include in the sample and who not to include. The fact that results of non-probability samples cannot be generalized does not mean that studies based on those designs should not be done. Non-probability sample designs are the most effective way to study harder-to-find populations – imagine trying to study homelessness using a national probability sample – or topics that require understanding a particular situation or phenomenon in more depth than would be possible from a survey.   Given the declining participation in surveys and other research, scientists are debating generalizability of some sampling de- signs. Market research, for example, is often comfortable with a large sample no matter how the individuals in the sample were (or were not) selected. Some polling firms are using large opt-in Internet panels from which they then draw random samples and generalize results. The important thing to think about is wheth- er the people who were included in a given sample might have characteristics that make them different from those who were not included in important ways.  

    Random-digit dialing is a probability sample. The results from this kind of sample could be generalized, but what if the dialing hits only landline numbers? The resulting sample will be very dif- ferent than if cell phones were included. In the former case, the generalizability could only extend to people with landlines, not to the general population.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    The numbers presented in the media and other outlets should be approached with who questions:

    » who was surveyed;

    » who participated in the survey;

    » who might have been systematically excluded; and

    » to whom, if anyone, can the results be generalized?

      A red flag should go up if no information about the sample is pro- vided. Similarly, seeing that the sample included a large number of people is a good first step toward credibility, but information about how the sample was selected will allow for decisions about whether the reported findings might be true for anyone beyond those who were included. The who is also important when the target population of a study is different than the one to whom the results are being applied. Questioning every fifth person in line at a randomly selected Starbucks at a given time is not likely to yield answers about coffee preferences and consumption that are representative of all adults in that city, even though a proba- bility design (systematic random sampling) was employed.  

    Margin of error/confidence

    image   The use of a sample of people, households, or Starbucks loca- tions to estimate the value of a characteristic for the population of those items encompasses a bit of uncertainty. Statisticians will often report their results followed by a margin of error or confidence interval because there is a chance that any one sam- ple chosen might not accurately represent the population. This creates an interval, or range, where the researcher can be more certain that the true value falls rather than using the exact value found in the sample. Wider intervals mean more certainty that the true value is within the range. Smaller intervals have higher chances of missing the true value. The size of the interval re- quired to reach a given level of confidence is also related to the size of the original sample. A narrower interval can be used to achieve the same level of confidence with a larger sample than would be necessary if the sample were smaller. Often the mar- gin of error is presented as something like “54% ±2%” and it can be interpreted to mean that the estimate of the population value falls between 52% (the reported number minus two percent) and 56% (the reported number plus two percent).

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Providing a margin of error is one way researchers and journalists can help data consumers know how much confidence to put in the numbers reported. A large margin of error means that the numbers themselves should be taken with a grain of salt, whereas smaller margins of error engender more trust. In an effort to present news, media outlets have a tendency to present the figures and maybe mention the margin of error but not consider whether the resulting intervals overlap. Political polling is one place in which this happens — it might be reported that support for Clinton is 52% and for Trump is 48%, ±3%, so Clinton is ahead in the polls. However, once the margin of error is taken into consideration, the candidates essentially report they are tied because the ranges overlap (49%-55% for Clinton, and 45%-51% for Trump). We now know that had voters taken the margin of error more seriously, they might have seen earlier that either candidate could have won.   image

    Correlation

      A correlation describes the connection between two variables. It represents the strength and direction of the relationship between them. Correlations can be either positive or negative. A positive correlation means that higher values on the first variable are re- lated to higher values on the second. A positive correlation also means that lower values on the first are related to lower values on the second. For example, height and shoe size are positively correlated – in general, taller people have larger shoe sizes than shorter people. A negative correlation means that as one variable increases, the other variable decreases. For example, the relation- ship between education and racial prejudice might be a negative correlation. People who have more education tend to score lower on scales of prejudice than those with lower levels of education.   There are two very important things to keep in mind when con- sidering correlation.  

    » A correlation or association between two variables does not mean they are causally related. Growing taller does not cause your shoe size to be bigger. It is likely genetics, nutrition, and other factors that are causing growth in both height and size of feet. An association between two things is necessary to say that one causes the other, but it is not sufficient. Causality requires proper time ordering (does

    the first variable actually occur in time before the second), a logical reason for why one should cause the other, and checking that no third factor is causing the relationship between the first two, like genetics in the example of height and shoe size.

    » A correlation only picks up a linear association between two variables. For example, there is a relationship between the length of time that a person is married and marital satisfaction, but it is not a linear relationship. Marital satisfaction is highest at the beginning of a marriage and later in the marriage, with a drop in between, so that the pattern is U-shaped.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Being aware that correlation does not necessarily mean causation is the important piece here. There is a great website (www.tylervirgen.com/spurious-correlations) that demonstrates strong correlations between variables for which there is no rea- sonable causal relationship, such as a .993 correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the per capita consumption of margarine for any given year. These correlations, while entertain- ing, are the result of a computer sifting through massive amounts of data to find things that have similar patterns. Hopefully one would know to question a report about divorce rates and marga- rine consumption and not infer any kind of causal relationship, but sometimes it is not that clear. A report on the New York Times blog, The Upshot, suggested that “heavier babies do better in school,” based on a “study of children in Florida [that] found that those who were heavier at birth scored higher on math and reading tests in the third to eighth grades” (Leonhardt and Cox, 2014). The time ordering is there – birth weight surely comes before third and eighth grade test scores, and the two variables (weight and test scores) are associated. The authors even note that education, race, and age of the mother were taken into account (controlled) and the relationship held. Before mothers of small babies seek out extra tutoring for their children, it pays to consider other factors that might be causing the relationship between weight and scores. For example, better nutrition and general health likely account for both larger babies and better cognitive functioning as measured by test scores. Understanding what a correlation means and what it does not is critical in using quantitative reasoning with such stories.  

    Significance

    image   Statistical significance refers to the ability to say that a reported result would only happen x% of the time by chance. Typical- ly these percentages are set at .1%, 1%, or 5% for them to be compelling. This precise meaning allows researchers to re- port findings as statistically significant when they reach these thresholds. Keep in mind that the identification of something as

    significant in statistical terms doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a momentous finding. Calculating statistical significance

    is based in part on sample size. When there is a large enough sample, it is easy to produce findings that are statistically signif- icant even when a relationship is weak or change is small. If a large sample of students who took a standardized test showed that there is what a statistician would call a statistically significant difference between female students who achieved an 88% score and male students who achieved an 87%, one might ask oneself whether that 1% difference really mattered. The key is to think about whether that statistical significance translates into real sig- nificance or importance.

    How is this applied to statistical literacy?

    Journalists are always hunting for the next big story, and sig- nificant research results can grab readers’ attention, but the difference between statistical and substantive or real significance might be lost in the process. Quantitative reasoning involves finding out what the actual difference or relationship is and considering whether the size of that effect is important in the big picture. Reported differences in mean levels of marital satisfaction for men and women might seem like a big deal, and one proba- bly could easily think of anecdotal evidence to support a finding that says men have significantly higher levels of marital satisfac- tion than do women. But what if that difference was that men scored 90.2 and women scored 88.4 on a 100-point index of mar- ital satisfaction? Does that less-than-two-point difference mean men and women really experience marriage differently? Wouldn’t a more accurate story be one that reports both men and women are really pretty satisfied with their marriages? Questions such as these about the implications of statistically significant findings are another sign of quantitative reasoning.  

    Raising statistical literacy in the classroom

    image   The mindset of statistical literacy is developed through practice. Exposing students to news articles and guiding them through questions about how the variables were measured, who was in the sample, and whether the results are worthy of such attention is one way to delve deeper. This can be used to focus students on the task at hand or to convey the content of the day. There are a number of blogs and news sources that provide quantitative information so it is relatively easy to find something related to most topics. Getting students to think quantitatively can be done without the math behind the statistics. Perhaps a science course is looking at the effects of climate change on policy (or vice versa) and having students write a paper that includes statistics about the average temperature each year or the amount of car- bon monoxide emissions eliminated by a given policy offers the opportunity to remind students about credibility of sources and types of averages.   Students in many high school courses are asked to convey infor- mation as an infographic rather than writing a more traditional research paper. Each of these assignments allows students to ac- tively engage with research and quantitative information, offering the scaffolding needed for quantitative literacy to become habit. This chapter provides a foundation for understanding fundamen- tal concepts from statistics so that we become more statistically literate and critical evaluators of numbers, results, and claims we encounter.  

    Resources

      image  

    Arum, Richard and Josipa Roksa. 2010. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Leonhardt, David and Amanda Cox. 2014. “Heavier Babies Do Better in School.” New York Times: The Upshot. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/upshot/heavier-babies- do-better-in-school.html?_r=0

    National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). 2013. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. Silver Spring, MD: National Coun- cil for the Social Studies.

     

    24 Chapter 1 | Introduction to statistical literacy

    ]]>     316 27 4 0     WHY DO I NEED TO BE A GOOD WRITER? https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/why-do-i-need-to-be-a-good-writer__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:38:54 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/why-do-i-need-to-be-a-good-writer/

    By Nicole Mighty (‘21) & Ruth Robinson (‘22)

    It is extremely important to know how to write and speak well, especially if you work in a corporate environment or own your own business. For instance, a person’s accent can get in the way of communicating well with others which can cause that person to feel inadequate or others to find them unqualified for a job. It doesn’t matter if you are from another country or another state in the US, it can be a stumbling block to communicate well. Some students whose first language is not English might have a difficult time expressing themselves through speaking and writing. While trying to master the complexity of the English language, some students have difficulties pronouncing certain words and would mix up the tenses in their writings. Learning proper English is essential to the flow and grace of both writing and speaking. Native Jamaicans, for example, may find this to be a challenge. Although their first language is English, Jamaican Patois (or Jamaican Creole or Patwa) is the most widely spoken. Being in the company of family or a fellow Jamaican unconsciously brings out the accent and the native Jamaican is no longer speaking proper English. For those for whom English is their second language, it can be time consuming to write in standard English because one is always second guessing if he or she is saying or writing the grammatically correct way according to the American English standards. However, if one can write well, then one should be able to speak even better. Regardless of background or education, it is essential to learn how to be a good writer by mastering the art of being a great English-speaking writer.

    In addition to using writing to become a better speaker for emigrant English speakers, writing could be used as a tool to structure a speech or conversation. In everyday life, people must communicate to inform, persuade, entertain, or explain. When writing these structures must be kept in mind (e.g., topic sentence, supporting details, and conclusion). This type of structure also applies when speaking. For example, if someone wants to ask a group of people to donate to a charitable organization, he or she may introduce the topic and show his or her intentions to get others to donate, and then provide supporting evidence for WHY someone should donate. Finally, the conclusion would be some reiteration of the topic sentence. This is the same structure people should use in writing. It is so important to be a good writer and convey ideas in an organized way because this skill often translates to effective communication with others.

    Express Ideas Clearly

    Often, our writing is the only thing we could use to represent ourselves to others. This writing could be in the form of a resume, cover letter, or novel. The message we want to get to someone else needs to be clear and polished or it will otherwise create a bad image for ourselves. For example, when writing an informative paper, too many typos will call the validity of the information into question. This idea also applies to a resume or cover letter for a job. Mistakes in writing can indicate a lack of professionalism or credibility, even if the writer is qualified for the job or expert in a subject. The quality of writing really matters, especially when it becomes one of the only representations for the writer as a person.

    Overall, the idea of writing can be intimidating, but if we allow ourselves to slow down and clear our thoughts, we’ll be able express our ideas and pour our sentiments into a computer or on paper. The more care we take with our work, the better it will be. One way to help map out our thoughts and organize them to prepare for quality writing, is to write it down in a journal. It can be a great tool to help delineate patterns and themes. A journal allows the writer to put thoughts down on paper and think them through. By using this technique, one can work out a difficult situation, make the right decision, or come up with innovative concepts. It can also help one to achieve goals and respond effectively to challenges in the future. With better decision-making skills and brainstorming techniques, one’s writing, and even life trajectory, will be that much clearer.

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    ]]>     386 17 5 0     WHAT IS GOOD WRITING? https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-is-good-writing__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:38:54 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/what-is-good-writing/

    By Grant Abraham (‘22)

    For anything to be considered good, it must first meet certain criteria. So, what is “good” writing? First and foremost, it should be easy to follow and comprehend. Even if you believe your message is logically sound, the messy organization of sentences can make it look like gibberish. Any reader will agree that good writing is interesting, yet even that is subjective. If one is not interested in a subject, they will not enjoy reading about that subject. The writer should write to his or her readers’ interests. In WRIT 300 MSB, readers’ interests are determined by the discourse community you are writing for or about.

    In my academic career, I have received a lot of praise for my writing style. Despite the compliments, my shortcomings are almost always the same. I tend to split hairs on certain ideas and go down rabbit holes until I forget about the initial premise. I had to recognize this as a curse and a blessing. When writing lengthy (10+ page) papers, I am (and you will be, too) forced to keep points concise and easy to understand. To combat this habit, I start freewriting all my first drafts; writing everything I have to say just to get it on paper. After I freewrite, I highlight the points that are essential to communicating my message and trim out the ones that aren’t necessary, even if they are informative. I ask myself, “Will they still get my point if I don’t say this?”

    Applying this strategy to business writing is particularly important. In most business genres, people do not have the time or inclination to read every word. It is incumbent upon the writer to use section headers to guide the reader through the text. Headers give readers a general idea of what will follow and allow them to choose the information relevant to them. A good writer also must be a voracious reader. Understanding what good writing looks like is the key. In WRIT 300, you will read a lot of documents. Success will entail reading analytically to best understand not only why, but how the writer has communicated key points.

     

    Good Writing is Essential

    By Caleb Adeosun (‘20)

    Writing is the act of skillfully representing one’s ideas and opinions in the form of text. Writing is a vital skill in communicating ideas and opinion. In most discourse communities, professions, and industries, writing is one of the essential methods of communication. Good writing plays a major role in a person obtaining employment. One’s writing skills (in the resume and cover letter) serve as the first impression a potential employer perceives before he or she is hired.

    Developing one’s writing skills makes one stand out, giving a person an extra edge over those who might have more experience. Being able to effectively communicate one’s experience in written form will give an employer a better gauge of skill the applicant’s skill set in comparison to someone with years of experience but poor writing skills. As such, the person with a clearer representation of their skill set would attract the attention of the employer, thus gaining an advantage.

    In the same manner, being able to use effective written communication in the workplace gives one an edge over co-workers. This is because being able to effectively communicate one’s thoughts and ideas allows information to be conveyed without confusion or the need for clarification, which in turn can lead to an improved work process. It may also contribute to better relationships between co-workers, superiors, and clients. With effective skilled written communication, one can elevate his or her quality of work and positioning for advancement.

    From a business perspective, being able to communicate effectively and professionally with one’s clients through writing helps create a good relationship with one’s customers. One should ensure that documents used by the business do not have typographical errors. The presence of typographical errors or incorrect grammar can create a negative image of the business and affect profitability.

    In conclusion, irrespective of one’s professional status, whether potential employee, employee, or employer, being a good writer is essential and beneficial to achieving one’s aim professional objectives.

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    ]]>     388 17 5 0     PREPARING FOR COMPOSITION AND RESEARCH https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/preparing-for-composition-and-research__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:38:54 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/preparing-for-composition-and-research/

    By Onai Charles (‘21) & Jamia Hawkins (‘22)

    Congratulations on enrolling in WRIT 300: Composition and Research! During the semester students should be prepared to write about topics related to their major and develop writing skills required for their disciplines. Students will also work collaboratively with their classmates and instructor to enhance their writing techniques. This book contains information about courses students should take as prerequisites, writing samples, and tips to help students succeed.

    WRIT 101, WRIT 200, and MGMT 330 are three courses that we would recommend taking to enhance one’s writing skills. WRIT 101: College Composition, is a course that helps students develop the necessary writing skills needed in college-level courses. In WRIT 101 students will learn about their discourse community, as well as how to write a basic rhetorical analysis and a research paper. Developing these skills is essential for success in WRIT 300 assignments.

    WRIT 200: Practicum in Writing, is a course that helps students expand upon the writing skills acquired in WRIT 101. In WRIT 200 students are required to write a discourse community handbook, a rhetorical analysis, and a research paper that includes a synthesis matrix and an executive summary. The skills developed in WRIT 200 will adequately prepare a student for WRIT 300 because each student have written essays like those required in WRIT 300.

    Another course that we would suggest completing before WRIT 300 is MGMT 330: Personal and Professional Skills for Business. This course provides a solid foundation for resume writing and professional networking. The networking activities in MGMT 330 will prepare students for the collaborative work in WRIT 300.

    Along with completing the recommended courses, students should familiarize themselves with the course syllabus and UB’s Career and Internship Center.

    WRIT 300 has four major writing assignments and includes a lot of group work. Taking the recommended courses will help students to prepare for the course and help ensure a student's success.


    4

    ]]>     389 17 6 0     Introduction https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/introduction/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:42:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/introduction/ 16 0 1 0 Statistical storytelling: The language of data https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/tasha-bergson-michelson__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/tasha-bergson-michelson/

    Noting a sharp increase over recent decades, a study released Wednesday by researchers at MIT confirmed that nearly 80 percent of all statistics are now sobering.

    – The Onion 2014

    Recently, I sat in on an English class as they considered the character Macbeth, looking closely at the play’s soliloquies. The teacher pointed to early lines in the play, in which Macbeth notes: “Two truths are told/As happy prologues to the swelling act/Of the imperial theme” (I.iii.128-130). She asked the class to consider why Shakespeare had used the adjective “swelling.” This started a discussion of words relating to rot and sickness that increase as the play progresses. When we read literary fiction, we understand word choice as an author’s tool used to evoke emotional and build a certain understanding of a character or a theme. We ask why one word was used instead of another. When we switch our reading over to statistics and statistical arguments, however, we rarely model this same level of close reading.

    “Close reading” has a variety of definitions. Often, in classroom practice, it means finding and extracting evidence from a text. To think about close reading of statistics as simply retrieving information, however, supports the notion, uncovered by Ann Fields, that students tend to frame research as retrieving information “waiting to be found,” without regard to context, and without the need for analysis (Fields 2005, 16). Rather, in “Closing in on Close Reading,” Nancy Boyles expresses a preference for close reading targeted at “craft and structure ... and integration of knowledge and ideas” (Boyles 2012). As we strive to help students become data literate, it’s essential to increase their awareness of the words used with the numbers. Writers can — intentionally or unintentionally — tell stories with statistics using language that influences or changes the meaning of the data itself.

    Authors who include statistics in their work have interpreted the data and found it to be worthy of inclusion. As a reader, I consider the author as a narrator and storyteller. By doing so, I’m reminded to take the author’s word choice, and my emotional response to it, into account.

    image

    The goal is to separate the information from its packaging.

    Until I actively recognized that the author’s word choice changed how I felt about information I was reading, I could not be confident that I was thinking critically about facts and ideas I encountered.

    As a librarian, I realized students were not alert to manipulative language. After a while it occurred to me: if no one is teaching them to look for how language impacts their visceral responses, then students are not solely responsible for the quality of their critical thinking.

    Thus, this chapter investigates how the language we use impacts our understanding of statistics in three arenas: reading, writing, and searching for information. It is informed by my current work as a high school librarian, as well as past work as Google’s Search Educator. Elsewhere in this book, my colleagues discuss choices made with the statistics themselves: poor sampling, visualizations that change the meaning of data, cherry-picking convenient evidence to make an argument, and so forth.

    The purpose here is to look specifically at how language ultimately impacts our interpretation and emotional understanding of the numbers embedded within stories we read.

    Authors of news articles, scholarly studies, and advocacy reports may select language to make their readers feel afraid, enraged, empowered, mollified, and more. It is our job, as educators and research skills specialists, to help our colleagues and students learn how to transfer the analytical reading we learn to do with literature and primary sources to our everyday reading, and to separate the numbers we encounter from their emotionally persuasive packaging, a packaging I like to call statistical storytelling.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     327 0 13 0     Experts and novices https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/experts-and-novices__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/experts-and-novices/

    In How People Learn (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 1999), the authors distinguish between experts and novices in a curriculum area. Novices are those new to a content area. It can be difficult for them to see the big picture at first, and they may over-focus on small details. On the other hand, experts are those who are more likely to overlook details and see the big picture. This comparison is useful to keep in mind when exploring statistical storytelling with teens.

    Working with teens who are reading nonfiction for either research or pleasure always reinforces for me the sway of loaded language. For example, one science class in my school assigns an adult narrative nonfiction book in an astronomy unit. The teacher wants students to practice recognizing emotionally evocative language to empower them to read science for pleasure in the future. Early in the unit, students argue that passages like the one below are devoid of emotion and totally based on facts:

    Another planet? Such a suggestion would have generally been scoffed at by most astronomers in the last days of the twentieth century. … There were certainly small asteroids to be discovered, and occasionally a bright comet that had never been seen before would come screaming in from the far depths of space, but certainly nothing major was left out there to find. Serious discussions by serious astronomers of another planet beyond Pluto were as likely as serious discussions by serious geologists on the location of the lost continent of Atlantis (Brown 2012, 5).

    The narrative laid out by author Mike Brown is factually true. Yet, when expert readers take the time to observe the dismissive tone

    — which Brown constructs with his use of “scoffed,” “certainly,” “occasionally,” and “serious” — we can see that the author is simultaneously relating a stance that truly existed within the scientific community and what he thinks about the scientists who felt this way.

    Alternately, I have seen tenth graders who are tasked with selecting “pro” and “con” articles on current issues reject sources because they are disheartened by the lack of confidence expressed in the writing. For example, a student pointed to this article, and passages like the one below:

    The approximately 200 studies on media violence are remarkable primarily for their inconsistency and weak conclusions. Some studies show a correlation between television and violence; others don’t. Some find that violent programming can increase aggressiveness; another finds that Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood does. Several studies, including the most-cited ones, are deeply flawed methodologically. (American Psychological Association, 2015).

    Expert readers understand that the language of uncertainty (the repeated use of the “some studies show…others don’t” structure, for example) is a sign that scientists have yet to prove a causeand-effect relationship between variables. This kind of language is standard in scholarly research, and a data literate reader recognizes such language as a mark of integrity and a strong grounding in statistics.

    However, the less-experienced student interpreted the indecisive language above quite differently. She worried that language was hedging, which in turn indicated to her that the author was not an expert on his topic. Without explicit guidance, students assume an inverse relationship between precise statistical writing and what they view as “factual” or “a good source.”

    Examples like these demonstrate how easily novices’ prior experience with reading for information can get in the way of stronger data comprehension. Let’s break down some key aspects of this phenomenon.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     328 0 2 0     Pure statistical storytelling https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/pure-statistical-storytelling__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/pure-statistical-storytelling/

    image

    First, let’s look at a few common uses of language that are related to specific statistical practices, and then we will move on to look at language more generally, and how it changes our experience of statistics.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     329 0 8 0     Clarify correlation or causation https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/clarify-correlation-or-causation__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/clarify-correlation-or-causation/

    image

    “When you take acetaminophen, you don’t feel others’ pain as much: The popular painkiller reduces empathy, study finds.”

    – Gabermeier 2016

    My colleagues have already addressed the most well-known error made in writing about statistics: describing a correlation as causation (see Chapter 1). Once we know this is a common misspeak, we can, as writers, avoid various forms of the word “cause.” As readers, we can also be on the alert when we see the word

    “cause” or its synonyms, remembering to check and see if the original research actually found a causal link. What other turns of phrase should we be on the lookout for when we read? What words are better choices when we write?

    Exercise: Identify words that indicate correlation or causation

    Headlines and first paragraphs of news articles and press releases, like the one above, may be designed to pack maximum impact into minimal print space or to encourage the reader to click through to the entire story (e.g., clickbait). Mainstream media examples make it easy for educators to find material for quick exercises that explore different language traps. The goal of these exercises is to sharpen students’ ability to identify language that implies causation or correlation. Ideally an exercise includes at least three steps:

    » Sort: Determine if headlines indicate causation, or simply correlation,

    » Identify: Point out the words and phrases that express the nature of the relationship, and

    » Construct: Collaboratively building a list of terms that fall into each category, allowing for group discussion during the process. For a sample list, see page XXX.

    When a recent school assembly speaker made a statement that erroneously implied causation, I heard the entire tenth grade — who had studied the difference in class a few weeks prior — whispering furiously to each other to point out the error. This demonstrates that through practice, recognizing the language used with data becomes much easier. It almost becomes second nature to spot the difference between implied causation and stated correlation. It is empowering for students to know the difference.

    Here are a variety of terms that may be used either to imply correlation or causation (Vita n.d.; Miller 2004, 24). See if your group can add to it.

    Words that indicate correlation

    Words that indicate causation

    Get

    Have

    Linked

    More … more/ less … less

    Tied

    Connected/Related

    Tend

    Associated

    Cause

    Increase/decrease

    Benefits

    Impacts

    Enhances/undermines

    Effect/affect

    Improves/Boosts

    If > Then type statements (implies onedirection)

    Consequences

    Exercise: Ripped from the headlines

    This exercise can work on four levels, depending on the amount of time you have and the particular group with whom you are working:

    » Sort: Provide a selection of headlines on diverse topics and simply sort them by whether they suggest correlation or just causation. Educator Jon Mueller keeps a running list of headlines for this purpose on his “Correlation or Causation?” page (http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/100/ correlation_or_causation.htm).

    » Compare: Offer a list of several headlines on a single topic, which have varying degrees of causation implied. Ask participants to rank them from most strongly implying correlation to most strongly implying causation. Appendix B has examples you can use, from a study that clearly states its findings are correlated, not causal.

    » Classify: Ask participants to classify a series of several first sentences or paragraphs of news coverage as implying just correlation or also causation. Each included excerpt is also based on an original study that clearly states its findings

    are correlated, not proving causation. Appendix C offers some examples you can use.

    » Rewrite: Supply a short selection of first sentences or paragraphs that all inappropriately imply causation. Ask individuals or pairs to re-draft them so that they indicate only correlation.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     330 0 2 0     Contextualize base and rate https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/contextualize-base-and-rate__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:11 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/contextualize-base-and-rate/

    image

    2015 saw a 100% increase in deaths due to unprovoked attacks by sharks.

    – Author summary of research done by University of Florida 1996

    As Lynette Hoelter explained in Chapter 1, another form of purely statistical storytelling that can impact meaning is sharing statistics without maintaining their context. Readers should be able to answer the questions, “Compared to what?” or, “Is that a big number?” (Blastland and Dilnot 2009).

    There are two kinds of context that are important in statistical storytelling: the first is when we see a statistic without its basis (also known as its raw number). And the second is the opposite: seeing a raw number without any data to compare it to.

    Consider these two statements:

    Imprecise: “The number of fatal unprovoked shark attacks rose by 100% in 2015!”

    Precise: “Six of the [shark] attacks were fatal. ... Although fatalities rose from last year’s low, which saw only three shark-related deaths, they remained stable when looking at the big picture, precisely matching the decade average....”

    – University of Florida 2016

    Discovering examples quickly and efficiently

    In both subscription databases and search engines, include the context terms [study], [report], and [research] in your query to locate articles that are reporting on statistical findings. (Note: the search terms to enter in the search box are delineated with brackets, though you do not need to use brackets when typing in your search terms.) For example, students needing content on the Zika virus might search for [zika report] or [zika study].

    Use date range filtering — available in many search engines and databases — to narrow in on articles from a particular timeframe.

    Search in Google News (http://news.google.com) for a current story on a topic, like [nutrition]. Alternately, you can try to find new studies, currently in the news, without regard for their topic. Headlines will often proclaim something like: “New research finds pictures of octopuses cause feelings of joy” or “New study found binge TV watching causes students to skip meals.” It looks a little strange until you get used to it, but you can leverage these common turns of phrase by searching for: [“new report OR study OR research” finds OR found]. This odd-looking little search will find current articles that are discussing new research. Or, combine the two: [nutrition “new report OR study OR research” finds OR found].

    Look for an article that has an Explore in depth link on the last line of the result (see Figure 1). Clicking on that link will give you all the articles Google found on that same story.

    imageFINDING WHAT YOU NEED

    image

    Figure 1: Accessing the “Explore in depth” feature in Google News.

     


    The first statement shares an impressive statistic, depending on a percentage with no point of comparison. As a result, it inspires generalized fear and a sense that something is afoot in the shark population. The second statement, excerpted from a story using statistics from the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, explains how the 2015 number of fatalities compared to those in 2014, and also to the general trend in attacks over a larger span of years.

    Authors can also make the opposite mistake, sharing a raw number without any signals to help the reader judge its size. Compare these two statements:

    Imprecise: “Shark attacks are common ploys in horror films, but there were only 98 unprovoked attacks worldwide in 2015!”

    Precise: “It’s the kind of record no one wants to break: the most shark attacks in a single year. But 2015 did just that, with 98 unprovoked attacks worldwide, beating the previous record of 88 set in 2000, according to the International Shark Attack File housed at the University of Florida.”

    – University of Florida 2016

    The author of the first shares a raw number of attacks without giving the reader any independent way to determine if it is high or low. In the second, the University of Florida compares 2015 numbers against the records in the International Shark Attack File and finds that 2015 saw approximately 11% more shark attacks than the next most attack-filled year. The context given by the inclusion of this range of statistics helps the reader better understand the severity of the number of attacks.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     332 0 3 0     Use statistics as evidence https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/use-statistics-as-evidence__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/use-statistics-as-evidence/

    image

    A statistic or a dataset is not a complete argument in and of itself (The Writing Center at University of North Carolina, 2016). Jane E. Miller, the author of The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers, reminds writers to report and interpret (2004, 24). Data is evidence that is used in combination with an author’s analysis to create an argument. Data, standing alone, is not sufficient.

    image

    Data is not, in and of itself, an argument; it supports arguments.

    Although we now know, from the two pieces of evidence offered above by the University of Florida, that 2015 saw a sharp increase in unprovoked shark attacks, what we do not really know is what that means in the real world. Why do shark experts think this increase is taking place? We need more information. Thus, it is appropriate that University of Florida follows the startling contention that 2015 had the highest number of shark attacks by a noticeable margin by explaining:

    Sharks plus humans equals attacks. As our population continues to rapidly grow and shark populations slowly recover, we’re going to see more interactions.

    – University of Florida 2016

    Datasets from a wide variety of disciplines could help students practice thinking about context in statistical storytelling.

    Exercise: Understanding statistics on the death penalty

    Consider Figure 2, found in the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Statistical Tables report on capital punishment from 2013. It records the number of “persons executed in the United States, 1930-

    2013.”

    image Figure 2: Number of people executed in the United States per the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2014

    As a class or in small groups, ask students what types of context are missing that could help readers understand the meaning of these trends. For example, how do these annual figures measure against the total population at the time? What meaning could we derive if we had that additional information? What was happening in various states, and on the national stage, with regard to the death penalty and the law over time?

    Some helpful resources for this activity

    The Death Penalty Information Center has a discussion on the history of the death penalty, as well as a timeline, that can be adapted for use in class (Death Penalty Information Center n.d.). Changes in social and judicial conditions also may play a role in the large number of executions in the early twentieth century. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Historical Corrections Statistics in the United States, 1850–1984” breaks down the number of executions and illegal lynchings, including statistics on race, by decade (Cahalan 1986).

    Provided with additional evidence from these sources, a class could practice writing brief passages that include some basis and/ or other context to data points for these execution statistics.

    Which average is the best average: Mean, median, or mode?

    image

    A certain airline, when asked about the age of a specific plane that crashed, responded that the average age of its fleet is 16 years

    – Tobey n.d.

    Simply put, beware of the word “average.” Chapter 1 defined median, mean, and mode, and described how they are different and why each one matters.

    There are two major errors to avoid with averages. First, take care that the measure used (mean, median, mode, or a specific data point) matches the question being asked. In the case above, the airline was asked the specific age of a particular plane, not the “average” age fleet-wide. An “average” might have been offered to obfuscate the actual age of the specific plane in question. Secondly, as with the earlier discussion about numbers requiring context, be careful to use the average as a piece of evidence, not as a freestanding analysis. In the case of the airplane’s age, the question has not been answered. One plane could be brand-new and another 32 years old to get at the mean of 16 years in age. We would refer to these two planes as likely outliers: extremes in plane age that are outside the rest of the planes’ age range. Which plane would you rather be in?

    Exercise: Find the correct measure

    Fundamentally, a researcher must clearly define what kind of question she is asking, and match the measure to the information need. Consider the amount of exercise the students at your school are getting on a weekly basis. Imagine you have the data on every student’s physical activity, in minutes of exercise a week, as shown in Figure 3.

    imageFigure 3: Number of minutes of physical exercise a week for students attending Mythical High School (Fictional data created by author).

    Ask the class to calculate the mean, median, and mode for the data points on the graph. Then brainstorm stakeholders in the community who would care about the amount of exercise students are getting. Which stakeholder would benefit by knowing the mean? The median? The mode? Write statements that use the most beneficial form of average for various arguments. Responses like these make sense for this data set:

    Those who would benefit from reporting the mean

    Stakeholder: Head of Food Services Goal: Planning caloric intake for students.

    Argument: “Our school lunches need to provide adequate calories for a typical student, getting n minutes of exercise a week.”

    Those who would benefit from reporting the median Stakeholder: The school board member

    Goal: The district wants to benchmark for physical activity on the part of the students, comparing national health guidelines to what students are currently experiencing district-wide. Argument: “National health guidelines suggest a healthy level of activity for students is 300 minutes a week, and right now our median is n minutes a week. Fewer than half of our students are meeting these federal guidelines. We need to make this a priority for our district.”

    Those who would benefit from reporting the mode

    Stakeholder: Physical Education District Coordinator

    Goal: Requiring daily PE classes all four years of high school. Argument: “There is a gap of almost 250 minutes of activity a week between our students who meet the Presidential standard for an active lifestyle and those who lead sedentary lives.” (Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA+ n.d.)).

    Those who would benefit from reporting outliers

    Stakeholder 1: Principal

    Goal: Arguing her students are getting appropriate amounts of physical activity.

    Argument: “Our students are so active, they are getting up to 240 minutes of vigorous activity every day!”

    Stakeholder 2: Parent

    Goal: Instituting school-wide calisthenics in zero period.

    Argument: “Over thirteen percent of the class is getting no physical activity at all!”

    After students complete this exercise, engage them in a discussion. Were the arguments being proposed in this exercise manipulative? Objective? Misleading? Accurate? Unfair? When we look at different ways data is communicated, is it always correct, just because it is “good” data? Is it possible for data to be both technically accurate but still misleading?

    While you can use data sets in a wide variety of disciplines for this exercise, the Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) might offer some useful ones to get you started (Center for Disease Control n.d.).

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     335 0 3 0     Use evidence https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/use-evidence__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/use-evidence/

    image

    Once again, statistics are not some numbers sitting around, waiting to be found, imbued with some independent meaning. They really can only be understood within a context.

    It is possible that many of us only ever encountered the terms mean, median, and mode in middle or high school math class. Since we are not accustomed to using them in everyday language, authors may worry that using the terms will be off putting to their audience. When an author uses the word “average,” it may be an attempt to avoid intimidating readers. Perhaps writers consider “average” easier for readers to understand than “mean,” “median,” or “mode.” Perhaps the author does not understand how the different averaging methods function well enough to write confidently using proper terminology. Since it is never a good plan to construct an argument or make a decision based on evidence one does not understand, one should only use information containing a statement of averages if one, in fact, understands it.

    Given the experience we now have with writing about averages, consider what should be taken into account when reading. Always be on the lookout for whether statistics are being used as a freestanding argument or as evidence in support of an argument.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     336 0 4 0     Cite your sources https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/cite-your-sources__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/cite-your-sources/

    image

    “[T]he levels of driver errors we found [among dehydrated drivers] are of a similar magnitude to those found in people with a blood alcohol content of 0.08%, the current UK legal driving limit. In other words drivers who are not properly hydrated make the same number of errors as people who are over the drink drive limit.”

    – Professor Ron Maughan in Loughborough University Media Centre 2015

    Above and beyond the ethics of citing sources according scholarly conventions, it is helpful to readers when the text of an article makes note of the source of its data. As a reader, keep an eye out for these citations. The information in the press release above transformed into bold newspaper headlines like: “Driving While Dehydrated Just As Dangerous As Driving Drunk” (Withnall 2015).

    Imagine the different perception for the reader if the story actually read:

    A new study, sponsored in part by the European Hydration Institute — an industry foundation established by Coca-Cola and other organizations — suggested that driving while slightly dehydrated may lead to a similar number of errors as driving with a blood alcohol level of approximately 0.08% (Watson et al. 2015).

    And how, again, would it be different if you knew that Professor Maughan, quoted at the start of this section and a contributor to the study, is also “Chair of the European Hydration Institute Science Advisory Board” (Loughborough University 2015)?

    Providing the origin of the statistic provides some context for the outcome of the study, though readers cannot necessarily judge bias on funding alone. In this case, it does seems suspicious that an organization with a “pro-hydration” agenda funded a study that found dramatic consequences of not drinking enough liquids. Pairing the origin of a statistic with the number in the text helps a reader interpret the meaning and quality of the number.

    In addition, students may not be aware of the different conventions for conveying an information source: I’ve had a student complain that an article they were reading from The Atlantic’s website did not footnote its sources, but her eyes had skipped right over the phrase “The OpenNet Initiative documents increasingly mature cyber attacks…” to get to the numbers that follow (Wagner 2013). Although the source was clearly named in the article, she was unfamiliar with how media sources cite articles differently than scholarly sources, so she overlooked it. For example, it can be helpful to point out to novice readers that media outlets frequently use the phrase “according to…” to signal when they are naming a source.

    When writing, it is helpful to the reader to incorporate the source of a given statistic into the narrative:

    Less helpful: The average home price in California is 240% over the national average.

    More helpful: California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, the research arm of the California State Legislature, calculated that the median home price in California is 240% higher than the national average….

    Most helpful: California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, the research arm of the California State Legislature, calculated that, with a national median home price of $180,000, and a California median price of $440,000, the median home price in California is 240% higher than the national average….

    (Taylor 2015, Gaarder 2016)

    The habit of incorporating the source name into the narrative does not require a teaching exercise of its own, but is rather something to remind students to do as they are writing in genres that do not use more formal citation practices. Incidentally, this habit is even more helpful (and required of all my students) when delivering presentations, where citations are not available to the audience in a meaningful manner.

    As a rule of thumb, you should only use statistics you truly understand as evidence. As a reader, therefore, you should be selecting sources that provide you with sufficient amounts of information about the data you desire, communicated in a way that does not inherently change its meaning or make its meaning less clear. As a writer, you should understand the evidence you are using and speak about it in a clear and helpful manner that will not detract from the reader’s ability to comprehend its true meaning.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     337 0 4 0     Emotionally Evocative Storytelling https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/emotionally-evocative-storytelling__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/emotionally-evocative-storytelling/

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    Could Your Fast Food Burger or Burrito Be Making You Infertile? A New Study Concludes, Possibly...

    Could your fast food be making you infertile?

    Seems like there’s a decent chance, or that it isn’t helping, anyway, according to a new study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal funded by the National Institutes of Health.

    Dr. Ami Zota, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University, was the lead author of the study and pored over the data of 8,877 participants, collected between 2003 and 2010. They had all been asked about their diets in the past 24 hours, and they all had given a urinary sample. In those samples, Zota and her team of researchers found that the more fast food people ate, the higher the phthalates they had.

    And unfortunately, phthalates isn’t another name, for, say, vitamins and minerals. Believe me, I checked. I was hoping and rooting for all of us… (Williams 2016 n.p.)

    Readers who pay attention to pure statistical storytelling may begin to notice that many instances of reporting actually follow the guidelines laid out previously, but still achieve a level of emotional resonance that impacts reader understanding. Let’s turn now to language that is not specifically conveying numbers, but still impacts readers’ understanding of those numbers. The opening lines from the above Forbes article about a class of chemical called phthalates, used in the packaging for fast food and linked by prior studies to infertility, follows the rules of pure statistical storytelling.

    The title:

    » uses a yes/no question,

    » highlights that it is reporting on a single study’s findings, and

    » includes the word “possibly” to indicate that the author is not claiming causation.

    The text:

    » reiterates the yes/no question in the first sentence,

    » refuses to provide a definitive answer to the question,

    » describes, quite succinctly, the sample group and methodologies used in the study.

    Technically, this statistical storytelling could have been extremely straightforward. It could have simply been a dry recounting of facts, and conveyed the study findings quite accurately.

    Author’s note

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    I do appreciate the use of a yes/no question in a title over a title that implies causation where none exists. However, I have recently started teaching my students a highly accurate adage, “Davis’s Law”:

    “If a headline ends in a question mark, the answer is ‘no’” (Bloch 1991, 163).

    (This phenomenon is often referred to as ‘Betteridge’s Law of Headlines,’ but Davis’s work predates that of Betteridge.)

    Yet, I found myself chuckling as I read the article. The informal language lightens the tone. The author’s voice, talking directly to me in that last line — rather than at me — makes the storytelling feel personal, like I am being taken into the author’s confidence, but as much like he is making fun of himself as that he is dis cussing scientific findings. He even concludes the article with a message for readers from the lead scientist on the study, urging us not to panic.

    It was surprising, then, that this slightly self-deprecating, personable and personal tone at the beginning and conclusion of the article sandwiched a very precise and incisive call to action. Williams suggests that readers bring their own plates to fast food restaurants until the chains change their packaging, and calls for “a movement” to get safer food. He also posits that his suggested changes would not constitute major economic burden for the fast food companies involved. Williams wants me to take action — he outlines suggestions for how I can fight back against fast food companies in a manner that will make their lives difficult and potentially inspire change. Yet, the lightness of his storytelling is the sugar coating on a bitter pill. He uses humor to keep me engaged through his angry retort.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     338 0 5 0     Intensifiers and qualifiers https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/intensifiers-and-qualifiers__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/intensifiers-and-qualifiers/

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    [A] 12-year-old who took longer than 12 minutes to run a mile ... scored lower on state standardized tests than those who were more fit.

    – Adams 2013

    In his 2013 book Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data, Joel Best lays out a number of ways in which language can be used to couch statistics in meanings the numbers themselves do not convey. Be on the lookout for superlatives: labeling a finding as “the best,” “the worst,” “the biggest,” or other fantastical measures. They are often overblown.

    What Best refers to as “superlatives” could fall into a category that writers call intensifiers. An intensifier is a word added to a sentence to amplify the feeling it conveys. The opposite of an intensifier is a “qualifier,” or a word that introduces some uncertainty into a sentence. Look at these examples:

    Original sentence: Students who get at least thirty minutes of activity a day perform better in their classes.

    Soften with qualifiers: Students who get at least thirty minutes of activity a day may perform somewhat better in their classes.

    Strengthen with an intensifier: Students who get at least thirty minutes of activity a day perform much better in their classes.

    When an author makes prolific use of intensifiers, the reader senses that the author strongly supports the statement. An author who uses qualifiers gives the impression of weak support (or little/no agreement with) the topic. By watching for and identifying intensifiers and qualifiers, readers can start to read between the lines on an author’s opinion.

    There is an exception to this rule of thumb when reading qualifiers in scholarly articles. As with the example of the expert writing about media violence toward the start of this chapter, responsible statistical storytelling employs qualifiers to create “confident uncertainty” (The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill 2016). “Uncertainty,” in this case, does not refer to author’s level of “grasp” of the topic, but how far developed scientific understanding of the topic is. Statisticians consider it good form to use qualifiers to underline the difficulty in proving causation.

    Can students determine the difference between confident uncertainty in the spirit of responsible statistical reporting and reporting that uses qualifiers and intensifiers to convey author’s opinion on the topic? In 2016, the Writing Center at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill offered fantastic guidance for considering how and when to use qualifiers in general-subject writing. Their handout offers lists of qualifiers that help convey confident uncertainty where appropriate, but also help writers practice stating their own analytical conclusions with confidence.

    Exercise: Peer review for intensifiers and qualifiers

    In class, students could peer review each other’s writing, identifying intensifiers and qualifiers. Where appropriate, peer reviewers can offer suggestions for places to add confident uncertainty, and suggest workable wording, in addition to identifying times that an intensifier could draw attention to an argument.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     339 0 5 0     Teaching the nonfiction writer as narrator https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/teaching-the-nonfiction-writer-as-narrator__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:14 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/teaching-the-nonfiction-writer-as-narrator/

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    Best points out that another way to evoke emotion in nonfiction writing is to give a situation a cute, distressing, or catchy name. For example, when a reader sees the term “The Pink Tax” used to refer to product pricing that makes items aimed at women more expensive than similar products aimed at men, be aware that someone selected that term specifically because it layered an emotional response onto their argument and, in doing so, potentially provoked a similar emotional response in the reader.

    Educators have traditionally helped students identify this strategy when reading fiction in the classroom; now we can help them transfer this skill to reading nonfiction for research and “in the wild.” Depending on your faculty’s tastes, there are numerous ways to frame the idea of unpacking statistical writing for its emotional resonance.

    My favorite frame, when working to identify emotional triggers in writing, is thinking of the writer as a narrator. When either reading or writing, we can extend this frame in a variety of ways:

    » Identify the narrator’s personality: Give participants a passage to read and ask them to describe the personality of the narrator, or describe if this person was a friend, what kind of friend would he or she be? How does the “personality” of the writing impact your response to the statistics you see?

    » Rewrite it: Ask participants to rewrite a piece that has emotionally evocative overtones, creating a more measured tone.

    » Unpack the unreliable narrator: Give learners a short passage of a study, news article, or advocacy piece, and ask them to highlight and discuss emotionally evocative language. You can push this exercise one step further — depending on which approach is the best fit for your faculty. Let’s look at three ways to approach the question of nonfiction author as unreliable narrator:

    Here are three different frameworks for discussing the notion of author as narrator, and exercises you can use for each.

    Exercise: Reconstructing a popular graphic organizer

    Co-contributor Wendy Stephens introduced me to a graphic organizer to use when analyzing fiction. There appear to be variations of this organizer, created by different individuals and organizations, and your students may be using it elsewhere in their schoolwork. It shows a stick figure that students labeled with:

    “The character says…,”

    “The character thinks…,”

    “The character does….”

    If we think of the nonfiction author as a story’s narrator, as shown in Figure 4, it allows us to slightly tweak these questions:

    “The author says…,”

    “The author thinks…,”

    “The author wants the reader to do or to feel….”

    Consider offering these prompts on a graphic organizer or worksheet for students to practice unpacking the tone and motivation behind statistical storytelling in media, advocacy, or scholarly writing.

    imageFigure 4: Applying story questions to nonfiction.

    As with the shorter form of this lesson, asking learners to provide evidence for the answers entered on the graphic organizer is an important way for them to practice their critical reading. Learners should highlight the words and phrases in the reading which signal what the author thinks about the topic, and what s/he wants the reader to do or feel. Discuss the evidence as a group.

    With the proper mindset, a lesson of this nature can be both engaging and challenging, as well as pegged for almost any age range.

    Exercise: Connotation and denotation

    There is another way to talk about these same elements, which might connect to prior learning for a different set of learners. In a sense, when I am reading nonfiction with an eye toward the author’s perspective, I think of the writing as having features analogous to connotation and denotation. The denotation, or dictionary meaning, is like the factual information — in this case, the statistics. The connotation of the passage is the feeling that the author inspires (intentionally or not) in the reader; the subtext about the story. The call to action is what the author wants the reader to take away from the text. Novice researchers must be aware of not just text but subtext, whether reading numbers or words.

    When our science students were reading their astronomythemed narrative nonfiction, I taught a 50-minute lesson (see http://bit.ly/NonFictionAnalysis) that combined the notion of connotation and denotation with that of an unreliable narrator. Our science students successfully unpacked each of these elements from the narrative nonfiction they were reading in groups. We started to move from “the author is just clear and informative,” to “the author wants us to think about him as more of an expert than the other experts” or “the author wants us to advocate for a more science-literate society!”

    In this approach, these same questions might be framed like this:

    » What was the author’s topic (what was the factual argument the author is presenting)? You could call this the “denotation” of the passage.

    » What was the author’s opinion about the topic? You could call this the “connotation” of the passage.

    » What was the author trying to make you feel about the topic?

    » What are some words or phrases the author used to evoke those feelings in you?

    Exercise: Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle

    When you have students studying formal elements of rhetoric, you may want to convey the same lesson using Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle (shown in Figure 5), which describes how speaker, audience, and subject work together to create meaning.

    imageFigure 5: The original version of Aristotle’s Triangle (top) demonstrates the relation-ship between the speaker (ethos, or expert approach), audience (logos, or logical reading), and subject (pathos, or emotional components), and how these elements work together to create the understood meaning of the text. Some scholars add an encapsulating circle to the original diagram (bottom) to communicate that the context or aim of the writing surrounds all these other elements and lends itself to how the text is understood.

    The Advanced Placement Language and Composition exam focuses on rhetoric, so collaborating with classes preparing for that exam may offer opportunities to practice transfer. (Hepzibah Roskelly’s 2016 article “What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric?” offers a succinct and clear overview of elements on which you may want to build.)

    Applying the rhetorical triangle challenges us to step out of the roll of emotional reader and look at our own responses from a dispassionate distance. Consider the opening of this article on school funding from the conservative-leaning organization New Mexico WatchDog:

    For decades, it’s probably the most troublesome question facing education: Why are results for U.S. public school students so mediocre, despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent?

    Andrew Coulson thinks he’s got the answer: Because there is no discernible correlation between spending and outcomes.

    “The takeaway from this study is that what we’ve done over the past 40 years hasn’t worked,” said Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom at the CATO Institute. “The average performance change nationwide has declined 3 percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Moreover, there’s been no relationship, effectively, between spending and academic outcomes” (Nikolewski 2014).

    In this instance, the author calls on the expertise of a think tank scholar, Andrew Coulson, to provide the ethos to his argument. Drawing on evidence from such an expert provides the reader with the development of a logical argument. As is often the case when authors cite statistics, the use of data to measure change in student achievement appears to offer a logical ground truth. Of course, it is our contention throughout this work that statistics can also be a tool of pathos, as statistics can be formulated or communicated in such a way as to change the feeling they convey to the reader. Additionally, all of these elements are framed for the reader with an opening appeal to pathos, when author Rob Nikolewski employs phrases like “most troublesome question facing education” to set up the logical argument he proceeds to construct. Finally, school funding, and government spending more generally, are often at the heart of national debates which provide a broader context – and watchdog groups aim to change government behavior. This article is situated within that debate.

    Select an article that makes use of statistics and identify the pathos, ethos, and logos. Consider how these elements change readers’ interpretation of the statistics shared within the story.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     342 0 6 0     Results required https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/results-required__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:14 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/results-required/

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    Beyond engaging in standard close reading, it might also help students to learn about some of the pressures acting on statistical storytelling, and for them to start taking notice of resulting uses of language and structure that can impact their understanding of meaning, especially in the popular media.

    One of the differences between writing done by students and the sources students consume is the expected outcome on the part of the audience. That is to say, a student who is investigating whether video games lead to violent behavior may turn in a paper that finds no difference between the two sides and receive a strong grade for good work, while a political advocate — whose funding, career, or cause may depend upon gaining publication and press attention — requires an attention-grabbing sound bite of a response. Students may not always be aware of this difference. Thus, it can be helpful to offer an example of storytelling with the same data set at different stages in its lifecycle to see how its meaning changes as users strive to attract the public.

    John Oliver’s fantastic (but not appropriate for school) piece, “Scientific Studies” (2016), called out one such example:

    » First, medical researchers, concerned with “conflicting results regarding the role of chocolate consumption during pregnancy” wondered if there was a difference between consuming high-flavanol and low-flavanol chocolate. They “observed no significant difference” between the two, noting that “daily intake of 30g of high-flavanol chocolate did not improve placental function” compared with low-flavanol versions, noting that it “might suggest that chocolate effects are not solely and directly due to flavanol content.” The original study is titled: “High-flavanol chocolate to improve placental function and to decrease the risk of preeclampsia: a double blind randomized clinical trial” (Bujold et al. 2016, S23).

    » Next, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the organization hosting the conference at which the researchers were to present their study, issued a press release about the study, entitled: ”The Benefits of Chocolate During Pregnancy.” The release ran through the findings, reiterating the baseline statistics with regard to the methods of the study, including the fact that each subject ate 30 grams of chocolate a day for 12 weeks. However, where the original reporting concluded that “...[T]he marked improvement of the pulsatility index observed in the 2 chocolate groups might suggest that chocolate effects are not solely and directly due to flavanol content” (i.e., researchers observed a pattern of change in a notable number of subjects’ placentas which was unrelated to the question they were testing, and the cause of which they could not identify), the press release argued that “This study indicates that chocolate could have a positive impact on placenta and fetal growth and development and that chocolate’s effects are not solely and directly due to flavanol content”

    (“The Benefits of Chocolate during Pregnancy” n.d.)

    » Finally, in the hands of the media, the story morphed yet again, to include headlines and opening lines like:

    “Pregnant women SHOULD eat chocolate as it’s good for them AND baby“

    Pregnant women who crave chocolate are in for a treat – scientists say eating it could be good for them and their unborn babies.

    Having just 30g a day may boost a baby’s growth, they claim (Christensen 2016).

    While students do need to understand the pressures on statistical storytellers to show impressive results to readers, educators do not want to undermine the notion that research in various disciplines can successfully help us build a greater understanding of the world around us.

    Exercise: The life-cycle of reporting on research

    Consider having students find storytelling about a specific study or data set at different points in its life-cycle and identify how it changes as successive organizations make use of it.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     343 0 6 0     EXPECTATIONS FOR COMPOSITION AND RESEARCH https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/expectations-for-composition-and-research__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:38:55 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/expectations-for-composition-and-research/

    There is a writing format standard used in collegiate writing that every student should become familiar with. The writing standard of the American Psychological Association (APA) is the standard for all scientific writing, and has become the standard for most collegiate writing, including writing in business disciplines and WRIT 300 (Composition and Research) which is a required course across majors. Business students can expect to focus on three primary types of writing:

    Rhetorical analysis

    Policy

    Self-marketing for employment

    Students are guided through three to four major writing assignments, beginning with the rhetorical analysis of genres common to a discourse community and ending with the employment packet. The course helps students expand their skills in writing effective prose for a variety of audiences, including academic, professional, and personal. The course consists of discipline-specific writing projects while enabling students to build on skills acquired in pre-requisite writing courses. WRIT 300 is designed to help students further develop their writing skills so they can be successful in their respective majors.

    Discourse Community

    By Tracy L.F. Worley

    Everyone belongs to a discourse community, but what exactly is it? A discourse community is a group with shared customs, practices, disciplines, beliefs, assumptions, goals, and/or values. The discourse of the community has a common way of communicating, and it can be a local community (like a school or business) or a focal community (like an accounting or project management association). Knowing your discourse community will help you to create within a context that is common to your audience. In WRIT 300, you will write for the audience of your discourse community, about your discourse community, and you will examine the ways (genres used) your discourse community communicates. Knowing your discourse community will also help you to craft a compelling treatise that uses lexis (lingo, language) that is common to your discourse community.

    Determining your discourse community requires an assessment of your interests, academic major, employment, social group, or organizational memberships.

     

     

     

    ]]>     390 17 6 0     WRITING SAMPLES https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/writing-samples__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:12 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/writing-samples/

    The following writing samples are actual papers submitted by WRIT 300 students.

    The best writing assignments in WRIT 300 will be written using the American Psychological Association (APA) standards for formatting, have minimal spelling or grammatical errors, and will have a business or professional tone.

    The employment packet assignment is designed to help students present their best selves on paper and should be designed as a marketing piece that will allow the student to land an interview. Students are encouraged to use a job or internship posting that they are interested in getting. Therefore, the employment packet should be written to optimize the skills and accomplishments of the writer or job applicant.

    imageRhetorical Analysis


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    Research Paper

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    Social Media Policy

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    imageEmployment Packet

     


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    ]]>     428 17 7 0     RESEARCH AND WRITING https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/research-and-writing__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/research-and-writing/

    By Tracy L.F. Worley

    WRIT 300 students should be prepared to conduct research to validate and substantiate the points made in their essays. Sources should be obtained from expert or authoritative sources, and information used from these sources should be properly cited per APA standards and formatting.

    Research requires detailed, methodical examination of a specific topic. Every writer has an opinion about their topic, but only opinions that are corroborated by expert or authoritative sources will be considered substantiated.

    “An expert source is a specialist, an individual who is a known expert in a subject-matter, usually by virtue of their professional or academic affiliation, peer-reviewed publications, or presentations” (Expository Writing Boot Camp, 2020). An article or paper written by an expert, for example, may be used as a source.

    “An authoritative source is reliable, well-researched, and authentic because it is widely recognized” (Expository Writing Boot Camp, 2020). A few examples of authoritative sources are Business Week, The New York Times, or WebMD. An article in one of these publications would be considered authoritative.

     

     

     

    Online blogs and public information sources such as Wikipedia, is not considered authoritative. It is unreliable because it is public domain, and anyone can publish with no peer review or validation of facts. However, by using the lateral reading technique of searching additional citations, affiliations, or other information found on the website, a good researcher will be able to legitimize some information found in an unreliable, non-authoritative source (Expository Writing Boot Camp, 2020).

    Online research sources:

    Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

    Educational Resources Information Center

    Google

    Google books

    Google scholar

    Infotopia

    iSeek

    Microsoft Academic

    RefSeek

    ResearchGate

    Wolfram Alpha

    Your school library


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    ]]>     430 17 7 0     BEST PRACTICES FOR STUDENT WRITERS https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/best-practices-for-student-writers__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/best-practices-for-student-writers/

    By Tracy L.F. Worley

    There are four primary best practices I would recommend for students taking Composition and Research: read often; write even more often; familiarize yourself with APA format; and review the literature of your discourse community.

    Reading opens a whole new world, it broadens our horizons, and allows us to experience things we haven’t experienced before. Reading also allows us to see various writing styles and ways of using words that are within the lexicon of your discourse community. If you are a marketing major, immerse yourself in various marketing channels and campaigns, review strategies, and the genres that marketing professionals use. This immersion should be undertaken regardless of your major. Then you write.

    Practice writing for your discourse community using the lexis that you discovered through your reading. Determine your audience and practice writing for them. If you are an economics major, put your thoughts down on paper it they relate to a topic in your discipline. Use good English grammar and punctuation. Write in the third person, expository writing style, and try to clearly convey your thoughts using the active voice. See if your thoughts and ideas concur with experts. Review the literature.

    A literature review, particularly among researchers and those pursuing advanced studies and terminal degrees, is the process of finding expert and authoritative sources within your topic area. The goal of this process is to discover the available knowledge base and determine what experts are saying about your topic. Finding sources that concur with your premise can validate your point of view. The key is knowing how to properly attribute these sources, and this takes practice. Now is the time to familiarize yourself with APA format.

    The UB Writing Center provides excellent a resource link for APA style guidance. The Excelsior Online Writing Lab provides for the Modern Language Association (MLA), Chicago Style Guide, and APA, with specific attention on preparing citations, in-text and in the list. Another option is the Purdue OWL (Purdue University Online Writing Lab), a comprehensive and updated source for the latest APA formatting standards (version 7 released in October 2019). It provides general guidelines and citation guidance.

    These best practices are merely suggestions but being prepared with some strategies for success is always a good choice.


    ]]>     433 17 9 0     A FINAL WORD https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/a-final-word__trashed/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:39:13 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/a-final-word/

    Writing should not be scary. If you have thoughts, you can articulate them on paper. If you have ideas, you can articulate them on paper. If you want to express yourself, just write it down!

    Understandably, writing can be an overwhelming task. But every college student can put their thoughts on paper – whether you use pen and paper, laptop or computer, or voice-to-text. You can do it! Never deny yourself the opportunity to showcase your talent.

    As something that is foundational to communication – particularly in the age of email, texting, and social media – writing can open doors for you not only as a student but also as a professional. Take hold of your God-given ability and make it work for you!

    Okay, writers, ready, set, GO!

    image

    Dr. Tracy L.F. Worley

    Adjunct Professor, WRIT 300

    University of Baltimore

     

    imageMake every word count!


    ]]>     435 17 9 0     CONTENTS https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/contents__trashed/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:32:10 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/contents/

     

    List of Figures

     

    List of Tables

     

    Preface

     

    Introduction 1

    Introducing Analytical Techniques

    for Public Management and Policy3

    The Institutionalization of

    Analytical Techniques4

    A Role for Analytical Techniques

    In Public Management and

    Policy6

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Scholarship

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Professional Self Image

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Practice

    Analytical Techniques: Understanding

    The Basics11

    The Language of Analytical Techniques

    Stages in Conducting an Analytical Technique

    Criticisms of Analytical Techniques

    Adapting Analytical Techniques for Public Management and Policy

    Conclusion

     

    Section 1: General Linear Models

     

    1.Chapter 1 Correlation

    Scatterplot

    Covariance

    Correlation

    2.Chapter 2 Regression

     

    NOT COMPLETED.


     

    LIST OF FIGURES

     

    NOT COMPLETED.

     


    LIST OF TABLES

     

    NOT COMPLETED.


    PREFACE

     

    It took 10 years to write this book. I was introduced to general linear models in 2012 in Measurement and Statistics (M & S) Program at Florida State University. At the time I was struck by the power of the analytic techniques – a suite of statistical knowledge and techniques for drawing analytical conclusions from a set of numeric values. At the same time, I was struck by the fundamental limitations of the applicability of the techniques, especially when applied to the field of public management and policy. I left the program after the master’s degree with the impression that the measurement and statistics were attractive but ultimately not very useful for social scientists, vowing to monitor progress in the field.

    I returned to the M & S program in 2015, and have learned in-depth analytical techniques since that time. The past decade has been an exciting time for analytical techniques, as the statistical techniques have developed rapidly, particularly in the area of psychometrics. These developments have coupled with recent advances in econometrics and the ever-increasing quality of quantitative research in the social sciences. Analytic Techniques for Public Management and Policy was written with the hope where the techniques can be used effectively to be evidence-based research and that it might encourage public management and policy researchers to inform more effective governance.

     

    THE AUDIENCE FOR THE BOOK

    NOT COMPLETED.

     

    THE PLAN OF THE BOOK

    NOT COMPLETED.

     

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    NOT COMPLETED.


    Chapter 1. Correlation

     

     

    In the Basic Statistical Analysis Course (e.g., PUAD 628), we dealt with a single variable or univariate data. Another type of important statistical analysis problem is the problem of identifying the relationship between multiple variables. To do so, we need to turn to bivariate data. For instance, economists are often interested to understand the relationship between two variables as follows,

     

    Education and wages,

    Salaries and CEO performance, and

    Aid and economic growth

     

    In these problems, we are interested in whether one variable increases accordingly to the other, and whether the relationship is very pronounced or to the extent that there is a trend. If this relationship is identified, it can be appropriately used for business strategy, investment strategy, economic policy, and educational policy establishment.

     

    Correlation analysis and regression analysis are methods of analyzing the relationship between the two variables. Correlation analysis is interested in the degree to which the correlation between the two variables is clear. On the other hand, regression analysis is interested in deriving the relationship between the two variables into a specific equation. Accordingly, in correlation analysis, two variables are treated as two equal random variables, whereas in regression analysis, one of the two variables is regarded as an independent variable, so only the dependent variable is treated as a random variable.

     

    In other words, under the perspective of correlation analysis, the levels of the variables are not under the control of the researcher because variables constitute random samples from the population. However, under the mentality of regression, one variable is clearly an outcome we want to predict or understand. In regression, a dependent variable is treated as a random variable, but independent variables (predictors) are treated as fixed variables (i.e., predictors constitute the only values of interest in the study so that the levels of the variables are under the control of the researcher).

     

    These two analysis methods are used complementarily to identify the relationship between variables. In this chapter, we first look at correlation analysis, and then we look at regression analysis in the next chapter. To measure the association between two variables, a joint distribution is used as follows:

     

    image

     

     

    Here, an independent variable is located on the x-axis and the dependent variable is depicted on the y-axis. The independent variable is labeled X and is usually placed on the horizontal axis, while the other, dependent variable, Y, is mapped to the vertical axis. The height is seen as the frequency of observations (or cases).

     

    The above joint distribution displays a normal distribution, and the normal distribution consists of three elements:

     

    Bell-shaped,

    Symmetric, and

    Unimodal.

     

    To explore relationships between two variables, we often employ a scatterplot, which plots two variables against one another.

     

    image

    We typically begin depicting relationships between two variables (i.e., X-Y Relationship) using a scatterplot—a bivariate plot that depicts three key characteristics of the relationship between two variables.

     

    Strength: How closely related are the two variables? (Weak vs. strong)

    Direction: Which values of each variable are associated with values of the other variable? (Positive vs. negative)

    Shape: What is the general structure of the relationship? (Linear vs. curvilinear or some other form)

     

    By convention, when we intend to use one variable as a predictor of the other variable (called the criterion or outcome variable), we put the predictor on the X axis and the criterion or outcome on the Y axis.

     

    When we want to show that a certain function (here, a line) can describe the relationship and that that function is useful as a predictor of the Y variable based on X, we include a regression line—the line that best fits the observed data.

     

    image

     

     

    As is true for many other characteristics of distributions that we wish to describe, parameters and statistics describe association between two variables. The most commonly used statistic is the Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r, which estimates a population parameter of ρ — rho). The correlation coefficient captures the three aspects of the relationship depicted in the scatterplot.

    Strength: How closely related are the two variables? The absolute value of r ranges from 1 (positive or negative) for a perfect relationship to 0 for no relationship at all.

    Direction: Which values of each variable are associated with values of the other variable? A positive sign, or no sign, in front of r indicates a positive relationship while a negative sign indicates a negative relationship.

    Shape: What is the general structure of the relationship? Correlation (r) always depicts the fit of the observed data to the best-fitting straight line.

     

    Note that if a scatterplot does not show a linear relationship, we do not take it as a correlation because if a relation is not linear. In other words, even though a statistical software program generates a numeric value for a correlation once you input data that represent two variables, it does not mean it is an actual correlation (r) because it is not always linear between the two variables. If the actual relation is nonlinear, then the correlation value generated by the statistics tool should be nullified.

     

     

    image

     

     

     

    The magnitude of correlation (r) is between -1 and +1. A no correlation represents r = 0. Both -1 and +1 are the maximum correlation, whereas the signs are opposite. According to Cohen’s rules of thumbs, a small correlation ranges 0< r < .1, a medium correlation is .1 < r < .3, and a large correlation is .3 < r < .5, respectively.

     

    An important concept relating to correlation is the covariance of two variables (SXY--Note that the covariance is a measure of dispersion between X and Y). The covariance reflects that degree to which two variables vary together or covary. The equation for the covariance is very similar to the equation for the variance, only the covariance has two variables.

     

    image,

     

    where

    X̅
    is mean of Xi,
    Y̅
    is mean of Yi, n is number of sample size, and individual is i. Note the denominator is n-1, not just n. In general, when the covariance is a large, positive number, Y tends to be large when X tends to be large (both are positive). When the covariance is a large, negative number, Y tends to be large and positive when X tends to be large but negative. When the covariance is near zero, there is no clear pattern like this— positive values tend to be cancelled by negative values of the product.

     

    However, there is one problem with the covariance—it is in raw score units, so we cannot tell much about whether the covariance is indeed large enough to be important by looking at it. The solution to this problem is the same solution applied in the realm of comparing two means—we standardize the statistic by dividing by a measure of the spread of the relevant distributions. Thus, the correlation coefficient is defined as:

     

    ,

     

    where SX and SY are standard deviations of the X and Y scores and SXY is the covariance. That is, correlation is standardized covariance.

     

    Because SXY cannot exceed |SXSY|, the limit of |r| is 1.00. Hence, one way to interpret r is as a measure of the degree to which the covariance reaches its maximum possible value—when the two variables covary as much as they possibly could, the correlation coefficient equals 1.00. Note that we typically do not interpret r as a proportion, however. Therefore, the correlation coefficient tells us the strength of the relationship between two variables. If this relationship is strong, then we can use knowledge about the values of one variable to predict the values of the other variable.

     

    Recall that the shape of the relationship being modeled by the correlation coefficient is linear. Hence, r describes the degree to which a straight line describes the values of the Y variable across the range of X values. If the absolute value of r is close to 1, then the observed Y points all lie close to the best-fitting line. As a result, we can use the best-fitting line to predict what the values of the Y variable will be for any given value of X. To make such a prediction, we obviously need to know how to create the best-fitting (i.e., regression) line.

     

    Recall that the equation for a line takes the form Y = mX + b. However, it is common to use two symbols that are b’s with subscripts. I will use the notation,

     

    Y = b0 + b1X

     

    We need to show whether Y is an actual score or our estimate of a score. We will put a hat (^) over the Y (or our book adds a prime: Y’) to indicate that we are using the linear equation to estimate Y. Also we subscript the Y and X with i to index the scores for the ith case. The line is,

     

     

    This is called a “fitted or estimated regression line”. The components or parameters in the equation are defined as follows:

     

    Yî
    is the value of Y predicted by the linear model for case i.

     

    b1 is the slope of the regression line (the change in

    Yî
    associated with a one-unit difference in X).

     

    b0 is the intercept (the value of

    Yî
    when X = 0).

     

    Xi is the value of the predictor variable for case i.

     

     

    There are several other versions of the model. The one above represents the predicted scores but we can also write the model in terms of the observed scores:

     

     

     

    Note that we’ve added an error term ei and now Y does not have a hat. This is also equivalent to the model showing the predicted score plus an error or residual:

     

     

    Note that the first model is an equation for the line and the other two are equations for the points that fall around the line. Therefore, the equation for the line describes the points right along the line and the other equations describe the points:

     

    imageimage

    image

     

    image
    image

     

     

     

    image
    image

     

     

     

    image

     

     

     

     

     

    image

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We will have a variety of notation for regression and different books do not all use the same notation. I use the hat (^) over Y to indicate an estimated score

    Yî
    .

     

    We also use the hat over Greek symbols such as β to indicate estimates of population parameters. One confusion we will need to deal with (later) concerns “beta weights” or “standardized coefficients” which some books denote using Greek letters even though they are sample estimates. I will call these b*.

     

    Our task is to identify the values of b0 and b1 that produce the best-fitting linear function. That is, we use the observed data to identify the values of b0 and b1 that minimize the distances between the observed values (Y) and the predicted values (

    Yî
    ). However, we can’t simply minimize the sum of differences between Y and
    Yî
    (recall ei = Yi -
    Yî
    is the residual from the linear model) because any line that intersects (
    X̅
    ,
    Y̅
    ) on the coordinate plane will result in an average residual equal to 0.

     

    To solve this problem, we take the same approach used in the computation of the variance—we find the values of b0 and b1 that minimize the squared residuals. This solution is called the (ordinary) least squares solution (i.e., OLS regression).

     

    Fortunately, the least squares solution is simple to find, given statistics that you already know how to compute.

     

     

     

     

    These values minimize image, the sum of the squared residuals.

     

     

     

     

    [Exercise 1]

     

    As an exercise example, consider the data below. We are interested in determining whether wages (X) would be useful in predicting first-quarter productivity (Y) for factory workers. So, we decide the wages to a group of workers, allow all of them to work, and then obtain each worker’s productivity after one quarter of work. We get the following descriptive statistics.

     

     

    Based on the given conditions, provide the estimated regression equation.

     

     

     

     

     

    Let’s plot that regression line (i.e., a statistics software program will plot this line for you if you have raw data). The line will always pass through the point (

    X̅
    ,
    Y̅
    ) which is (500, 2.5) for our data.

     

     

    imageimage(700, 3.41)
    image
    image

     

     

     

     

    We may compute

    Yî
    for another X value (say, 700) to get a second point on the line:

     

    Yî
    = .00455(700) +.225= 3.41

     

    Therefore, what does this regression line and its parameters tell us?

     

    The intercept tells us that the best guess at productivity when wages = 0 equals .225—a situation that is conceptually impossible, because wages cannot be as low as zero. This points out an important point, sometimes the model will predict impossible values.

     

    What is

    Yî
    for X = 900?

     

    The slope tells us that, for every 1-point increase in wages, we get an increase in productivity of .00455. The covariance and correlation (as well as the slope) tell us that the relationship between wages and productivity is positive. That is, productivity tends to increase when wages increase.

     

    Note, however, that it is incorrect to ascribe a causal relationship between wages and productivity in this context. There are several other conditions that need to be met in order to confidently state that interventions that change wages will also change productivity. Do you know what those are?

     

    We will now spend the next two months or so learning all of the steps in regression analysis. This is where we are headed, but there are many pieces of this process to learn. Today we saw how to “estimate model” for one X (one independent variable).

     

    Preliminary analyses

    Inspect scatterplots.

    Conduct case analysis.

    If no problems, continue with regression analyses.

    Regression analyses

    Estimate model.

    Check possible violations of assumptions for this model.

    Test overall relationship.

    If overall relationship is significant, continue with description of effects of independent variable (IV)’s (or if not, try other models).

    For each interval and dichotomous IV, test coefficient, compute interval, assess importance, and compute unique contribution to R2.

    For each categorical IV, test global effect and, if significant, follow up with test, interval, and assessment of importance for each comparison.

    If equation will be used for prediction, assess precision of prediction.

    ]]>     454 17 9 0     CONTENTS https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/contents__trashed-2/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:34:44 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/chapter/contents/

     

    List of Figures

     

    List of Tables

     

    Preface

     

    Introduction 1

    Introducing Analytical Techniques

    for Public Management and Policy3

    The Institutionalization of

    Analytical Techniques4

    A Role for Analytical Techniques

    In Public Management and

    Policy6

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Scholarship

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Professional Self Image

    A Role for Analytical Techniques in Improving Practice

    Analytical Techniques: Understanding

    The Basics11

    The Language of Analytical Techniques

    Stages in Conducting an Analytical Technique

    Criticisms of Analytical Techniques

    Adapting Analytical Techniques for Public Management and Policy

    Conclusion

     

    Section 1: General Linear Models

     

    1.Chapter 1 Correlation

    Scatterplot

    Covariance

    Correlation

    2.Chapter 2 Regression

     

    NOT COMPLETED.


     

    LIST OF FIGURES

     

    NOT COMPLETED.

     


    LIST OF TABLES

     

    NOT COMPLETED.


    PREFACE

     

    It took 10 years to write this book. I was introduced to general linear models in 2012 in Measurement and Statistics (M & S) Program at Florida State University. At the time I was struck by the power of the analytic techniques – a suite of statistical knowledge and techniques for drawing analytical conclusions from a set of numeric values. At the same time, I was struck by the fundamental limitations of the applicability of the techniques, especially when applied to the field of public management and policy. I left the program after the master’s degree with the impression that the measurement and statistics were attractive but ultimately not very useful for social scientists, vowing to monitor progress in the field.

    I returned to the M & S program in 2015, and have learned in-depth analytical techniques since that time. The past decade has been an exciting time for analytical techniques, as the statistical techniques have developed rapidly, particularly in the area of psychometrics. These developments have coupled with recent advances in econometrics and the ever-increasing quality of quantitative research in the social sciences. Analytic Techniques for Public Management and Policy was written with the hope where the techniques can be used effectively to be evidence-based research and that it might encourage public management and policy researchers to inform more effective governance.

     

    THE AUDIENCE FOR THE BOOK

    NOT COMPLETED.

     

    THE PLAN OF THE BOOK

    NOT COMPLETED.

     

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    NOT COMPLETED.


    Chapter 1. Correlation

     

     

    In the Basic Statistical Analysis Course (e.g., PUAD 628), we dealt with a single variable or univariate data. Another type of important statistical analysis problem is the problem of identifying the relationship between multiple variables. To do so, we need to turn to bivariate data. For instance, economists are often interested to understand the relationship between two variables as follows,

     

    Education and wages,

    Salaries and CEO performance, and

    Aid and economic growth

     

    In these problems, we are interested in whether one variable increases accordingly to the other, and whether the relationship is very pronounced or to the extent that there is a trend. If this relationship is identified, it can be appropriately used for business strategy, investment strategy, economic policy, and educational policy establishment.

     

    Correlation analysis and regression analysis are methods of analyzing the relationship between the two variables. Correlation analysis is interested in the degree to which the correlation between the two variables is clear. On the other hand, regression analysis is interested in deriving the relationship between the two variables into a specific equation. Accordingly, in correlation analysis, two variables are treated as two equal random variables, whereas in regression analysis, one of the two variables is regarded as an independent variable, so only the dependent variable is treated as a random variable.

     

    In other words, under the perspective of correlation analysis, the levels of the variables are not under the control of the researcher because variables constitute random samples from the population. However, under the mentality of regression, one variable is clearly an outcome we want to predict or understand. In regression, a dependent variable is treated as a random variable, but independent variables (predictors) are treated as fixed variables (i.e., predictors constitute the only values of interest in the study so that the levels of the variables are under the control of the researcher).

     

    These two analysis methods are used complementarily to identify the relationship between variables. In this chapter, we first look at correlation analysis, and then we look at regression analysis in the next chapter. To measure the association between two variables, a joint distribution is used as follows:

     

    image

     

     

    Here, an independent variable is located on the x-axis and the dependent variable is depicted on the y-axis. The independent variable is labeled X and is usually placed on the horizontal axis, while the other, dependent variable, Y, is mapped to the vertical axis. The height is seen as the frequency of observations (or cases).

     

    The above joint distribution displays a normal distribution, and the normal distribution consists of three elements:

     

    Bell-shaped,

    Symmetric, and

    Unimodal.

     

    To explore relationships between two variables, we often employ a scatterplot, which plots two variables against one another.

     

    image

    We typically begin depicting relationships between two variables (i.e., X-Y Relationship) using a scatterplot—a bivariate plot that depicts three key characteristics of the relationship between two variables.

     

    Strength: How closely related are the two variables? (Weak vs. strong)

    Direction: Which values of each variable are associated with values of the other variable? (Positive vs. negative)

    Shape: What is the general structure of the relationship? (Linear vs. curvilinear or some other form)

     

    By convention, when we intend to use one variable as a predictor of the other variable (called the criterion or outcome variable), we put the predictor on the X axis and the criterion or outcome on the Y axis.

     

    When we want to show that a certain function (here, a line) can describe the relationship and that that function is useful as a predictor of the Y variable based on X, we include a regression line—the line that best fits the observed data.

     

    image

     

     

    As is true for many other characteristics of distributions that we wish to describe, parameters and statistics describe association between two variables. The most commonly used statistic is the Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r, which estimates a population parameter of ρ — rho). The correlation coefficient captures the three aspects of the relationship depicted in the scatterplot.

    Strength: How closely related are the two variables? The absolute value of r ranges from 1 (positive or negative) for a perfect relationship to 0 for no relationship at all.

    Direction: Which values of each variable are associated with values of the other variable? A positive sign, or no sign, in front of r indicates a positive relationship while a negative sign indicates a negative relationship.

    Shape: What is the general structure of the relationship? Correlation (r) always depicts the fit of the observed data to the best-fitting straight line.

     

    Note that if a scatterplot does not show a linear relationship, we do not take it as a correlation because if a relation is not linear. In other words, even though a statistical software program generates a numeric value for a correlation once you input data that represent two variables, it does not mean it is an actual correlation (r) because it is not always linear between the two variables. If the actual relation is nonlinear, then the correlation value generated by the statistics tool should be nullified.

     

     

    image

     

     

     

    The magnitude of correlation (r) is between -1 and +1. A no correlation represents r = 0. Both -1 and +1 are the maximum correlation, whereas the signs are opposite. According to Cohen’s rules of thumbs, a small correlation ranges 0< r < .1, a medium correlation is .1 < r < .3, and a large correlation is .3 < r < .5, respectively.

     

    An important concept relating to correlation is the covariance of two variables (SXY--Note that the covariance is a measure of dispersion between X and Y). The covariance reflects that degree to which two variables vary together or covary. The equation for the covariance is very similar to the equation for the variance, only the covariance has two variables.

     

    image,

     

    where

    X̅
    is mean of Xi,
    Y̅
    is mean of Yi, n is number of sample size, and individual is i. Note the denominator is n-1, not just n. In general, when the covariance is a large, positive number, Y tends to be large when X tends to be large (both are positive). When the covariance is a large, negative number, Y tends to be large and positive when X tends to be large but negative. When the covariance is near zero, there is no clear pattern like this— positive values tend to be cancelled by negative values of the product.

     

    However, there is one problem with the covariance—it is in raw score units, so we cannot tell much about whether the covariance is indeed large enough to be important by looking at it. The solution to this problem is the same solution applied in the realm of comparing two means—we standardize the statistic by dividing by a measure of the spread of the relevant distributions. Thus, the correlation coefficient is defined as:

     

    ,

     

    where SX and SY are standard deviations of the X and Y scores and SXY is the covariance. That is, correlation is standardized covariance.

     

    Because SXY cannot exceed |SXSY|, the limit of |r| is 1.00. Hence, one way to interpret r is as a measure of the degree to which the covariance reaches its maximum possible value—when the two variables covary as much as they possibly could, the correlation coefficient equals 1.00. Note that we typically do not interpret r as a proportion, however. Therefore, the correlation coefficient tells us the strength of the relationship between two variables. If this relationship is strong, then we can use knowledge about the values of one variable to predict the values of the other variable.

     

    Recall that the shape of the relationship being modeled by the correlation coefficient is linear. Hence, r describes the degree to which a straight line describes the values of the Y variable across the range of X values. If the absolute value of r is close to 1, then the observed Y points all lie close to the best-fitting line. As a result, we can use the best-fitting line to predict what the values of the Y variable will be for any given value of X. To make such a prediction, we obviously need to know how to create the best-fitting (i.e., regression) line.

     

    Recall that the equation for a line takes the form Y = mX + b. However, it is common to use two symbols that are b’s with subscripts. I will use the notation,

     

    Y = b0 + b1X

     

    We need to show whether Y is an actual score or our estimate of a score. We will put a hat (^) over the Y (or our book adds a prime: Y’) to indicate that we are using the linear equation to estimate Y. Also we subscript the Y and X with i to index the scores for the ith case. The line is,

     

     

    This is called a “fitted or estimated regression line”. The components or parameters in the equation are defined as follows:

     

    Yî
    is the value of Y predicted by the linear model for case i.

     

    b1 is the slope of the regression line (the change in

    Yî
    associated with a one-unit difference in X).

     

    b0 is the intercept (the value of

    Yî
    when X = 0).

     

    Xi is the value of the predictor variable for case i.

     

     

    There are several other versions of the model. The one above represents the predicted scores but we can also write the model in terms of the observed scores:

     

     

     

    Note that we’ve added an error term ei and now Y does not have a hat. This is also equivalent to the model showing the predicted score plus an error or residual:

     

     

    Note that the first model is an equation for the line and the other two are equations for the points that fall around the line. Therefore, the equation for the line describes the points right along the line and the other equations describe the points:

     

    imageimage

    image

     

    image
    image

     

     

     

    image
    image

     

     

     

    image

     

     

     

     

     

    image

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We will have a variety of notation for regression and different books do not all use the same notation. I use the hat (^) over Y to indicate an estimated score

    Yî
    .

     

    We also use the hat over Greek symbols such as β to indicate estimates of population parameters. One confusion we will need to deal with (later) concerns “beta weights” or “standardized coefficients” which some books denote using Greek letters even though they are sample estimates. I will call these b*.

     

    Our task is to identify the values of b0 and b1 that produce the best-fitting linear function. That is, we use the observed data to identify the values of b0 and b1 that minimize the distances between the observed values (Y) and the predicted values (

    Yî
    ). However, we can’t simply minimize the sum of differences between Y and
    Yî
    (recall ei = Yi -
    Yî
    is the residual from the linear model) because any line that intersects (
    X̅
    ,
    Y̅
    ) on the coordinate plane will result in an average residual equal to 0.

     

    To solve this problem, we take the same approach used in the computation of the variance—we find the values of b0 and b1 that minimize the squared residuals. This solution is called the (ordinary) least squares solution (i.e., OLS regression).

     

    Fortunately, the least squares solution is simple to find, given statistics that you already know how to compute.

     

     

     

     

    These values minimize image, the sum of the squared residuals.

     

     

     

     

    [Exercise 1]

     

    As an exercise example, consider the data below. We are interested in determining whether wages (X) would be useful in predicting first-quarter productivity (Y) for factory workers. So, we decide the wages to a group of workers, allow all of them to work, and then obtain each worker’s productivity after one quarter of work. We get the following descriptive statistics.

     

     

    Based on the given conditions, provide the estimated regression equation.

     

     

     

     

     

    Let’s plot that regression line (i.e., a statistics software program will plot this line for you if you have raw data). The line will always pass through the point (

    X̅
    ,
    Y̅
    ) which is (500, 2.5) for our data.

     

     

    imageimage(700, 3.41)
    image
    image

     

     

     

     

    We may compute

    Yî
    for another X value (say, 700) to get a second point on the line:

     

    Yî
    = .00455(700) +.225= 3.41

     

    Therefore, what does this regression line and its parameters tell us?

     

    The intercept tells us that the best guess at productivity when wages = 0 equals .225—a situation that is conceptually impossible, because wages cannot be as low as zero. This points out an important point, sometimes the model will predict impossible values.

     

    What is

    Yî
    for X = 900?

     

    The slope tells us that, for every 1-point increase in wages, we get an increase in productivity of .00455. The covariance and correlation (as well as the slope) tell us that the relationship between wages and productivity is positive. That is, productivity tends to increase when wages increase.

     

    Note, however, that it is incorrect to ascribe a causal relationship between wages and productivity in this context. There are several other conditions that need to be met in order to confidently state that interventions that change wages will also change productivity. Do you know what those are?

     

    We will now spend the next two months or so learning all of the steps in regression analysis. This is where we are headed, but there are many pieces of this process to learn. Today we saw how to “estimate model” for one X (one independent variable).

     

    Preliminary analyses

    Inspect scatterplots.

    Conduct case analysis.

    If no problems, continue with regression analyses.

    Regression analyses

    Estimate model.

    Check possible violations of assumptions for this model.

    Test overall relationship.

    If overall relationship is significant, continue with description of effects of independent variable (IV)’s (or if not, try other models).

    For each interval and dichotomous IV, test coefficient, compute interval, assess importance, and compute unique contribution to R2.

    For each categorical IV, test global effect and, if significant, follow up with test, interval, and assessment of importance for each comparison.

    If equation will be used for prediction, assess precision of prediction.

    ]]>     462 17 9 0     Authors https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/authors/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:14 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/authors/ ]]> 3 0 1 0 Cover https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:14 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/cover/ ]]> 4 0 2 0 Table of Contents https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/table-of-contents/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/table-of-contents/ ]]> 5 0 3 0 Book Information https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?metadata=book-information Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?metadata=book-information 12 0 1 0 Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.]]> analytical thinking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/analytical-thinking/ Sat, 03 Oct 2020 20:05:50 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/analytical-thinking/ 263 0 0 0 Memory and (mis)information https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/memory-and-misinformation__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/memory-and-misinformation/

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    There is much we still do not know about how memory works. Both academic researchers and marketing professionals experiment with emotionally evocative wording and memory, accumulating growing evidence that triggering strong emotions through word choice helps shape recall. Researchers are also interested to know if headlines influence how readers understand and retain the content of the stories that follow. Lewandowsy et al review the scholarship on “Misinformation and Its Correction,” confirming a strong research trend hypothesizing that what people first learn to be true will continue to be what they believe, even if corrected later. Only three methods seem to produce some change in what readers remember. One of these methods is offering a new narrative to replace the reader’s existing one (Lewandowsky et al. 2012, 117). This finding prompted other researchers to ask whether a complete news story could counteract the impact of a misleading headline. This single study indicated that “misleading headlines affect readers’ memory, their inferential reasoning and behavioral intentions” even when the article itself created a replacement narrative, if the headline is just misleading enough that the reader does not notice a glaring contradiction between it and the body of the article (Ecker et al. 2014, 323). As a result, implications of headlines may be coloring readers’ understanding of statistical arguments even before the evidence is presented. Among other things, this finding would suggest even further that statistics cannot simply be evidence “waiting to be found” because the reader’s understanding of their meaning may essentially be set even before they reach the statistics.

    This relationship between the headline and the body of a story play out in different ways across different forms of writing. In her “How to Read and Understand a Scientific Paper: A Guide for Non-Scientists,” Jennifer Raff of the University of Kansas suggested upending traditional practice and saving the abstract as the last, not first, part of a paper to read (2013). Reading the abstract first, she hypothesizes, causes the reader to believe the rest of the paper must be true and truncates the close reading process that could lead readers to find new or contradictory findings in the data or its methodology.

    Similarly, the opening image of The Atlantic’s “Why Internet

    Headline Writers Hate Themselves” jokingly refers to writing a “One sentence summary that walks back the promise made in the headline” (Thompson 2015, 1). This seems counterintuitive to straightforward reporting practices, but one easily finds numerous examples of this journalistic trick:

    Consider this press release from the American Psychological Association:

    APA Review Confirms Link Between Playing Violent Video Games and Aggression

    Finds insufficient research to link violent video game play to criminal violence

    Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report. … (American Psychological Association 2015)

    As you can see, even scholarly organizations can make this error!

    Exercise: Exposing contradictions

    When students are collecting sources during research, consider asking them to annotate the articles. These annotations should include contradictions they find between a headline’s conclusion and the information in the opening paragraphs. Students might be surprised with how often these contradictions occur in the media. Furthermore, this practice will help them attend to the actual message of the statistics within the piece, rather than the title that initially attracted their eye.

    Each of these elements of statistical storytelling help form readers’ understanding of a story. Taken piece-by-piece, they may feel like too much to handle. It has been my observation, however, that practice noticing even one of these ways in which language can be used to change readers’ understanding can have a great impact on the critical thinking that goes on during the overall reading and writing process.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     344 0 7 0     Searching https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/searching__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/searching/

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    Once students begin to get a feeling for what to watch out for in reading and writing, the same knowledge can be applied to choices made when searching for statistical stories.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     345 0 8 0     “Garbage in/garbage out” https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/garbage-in-garbage-out__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/garbage-in-garbage-out/

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    In our library, we hold the philosophy that source evaluation — the ability to assess the credibility of a resource — begins with strong search skills. All search tools provide a “garbage in/garbage out” experience. That is to say, search engines and databases “read” each page or article they contain, placing each word that appears within that source in an index. When you type a query into the search box (we’re using brackets in this book to demarcate text that is typed into a search box), the search engine or database then compares the words in your query to the words indexed for each page or article, and gives you the sources that match. Google is coded to provide the flexibility to consider “related terms” — meaning it “understands” that [correlation] and [link] are often synonymous. Expert searchers know that when you use a word in your search, you should expect to see it on the page that comes back. Formal terminology tends to bring back pages with formal sources, informal language leads to informal sources. Experts consider what kind of language will be used in the answer they seek.

    Alternatively, the novice searcher is thinking about his or her question (and may even have phrased the search string in the form of a question). Therefore, people who want to know if videos games cause violence tend to search for [video games cause violence], or even [Do video games cause violence?] but then results are more likely to skew toward articles that are confusing correlation and causation.

    Of course, terms like [cause], [impact], and [average] are very tempting to include in queries. But the cleanest searches are devoid of any words describing relationships among factors, such as [video games violence] in a search engine, or [(video games) AND violence] in a database.

    If you don’t know what your answer is (for example, if you don’t know that video games cause violence, for certain) then you are best to leave the verb out.

    image

    A useful rule of thumb is: Search for your answer, not your question.

    Familiarity with synonym searching can be crucial in this regard. Building on Best’s 2013 point about naming issues to manipulate reader perceptions, the evidence researchers encounter will also skew with the search terms they chose. My students seek help when they are only finding one side of an argument when they are searching with terms that may be named differently depending on one’s point of view, as shown in Figure 6.

    If a searcher wants to see how various stakeholders address a single issue, it will be necessary to search separately, using each group’s name for the topic, in turn. Similarly, different disciplines may use a variety of terms to refer to the same idea. For example, economists and academic librarians talk about “threshold concepts” as foundational knowledge, while others might use a term like “background knowledge.”

    If one searchers only for this term, She may miss stories that use this term

     

    [undocumented worker]

    [illegal immigrant]

    [birthright citizenship]

    [anchor baby]

     

    [obamacare]

    [affordable care act]

     

    [drone]

    [unmanned aerial vehicle]

     

    [red scare]

    [anti-communism]

    [mccarthyism]

    [house un-american activities committee]

     

    Figure 6: similar search terms with different connotations.

     

    Exercise: Write search terms

    Select a topic that is relevant to your curriculum. Try one of the following:

    » Discuss that there can be a difference between search results that feel helpful, which is often code for “easy to find and easy to read” and those that are actually good quality. The best sources often have both of these attributes, but when one searches with a long-form question one often gets results that are “easy” to read rather than those of great quality. Brainstorm more- and less-formal ways of referring to single ideas and try searching with each term – observe the differences in results.

    » Identify synonyms that would be used by different stakeholders to describe a single idea. Try searching with each term and observe the differences in results.

    » Practice writing searches that do not include language that would skew toward causation unless you know that causation has actually been proven. Once again, trying searches and comparing results can be helpful.

    A quick note before we move on: Web searching can work in unexpected ways. Sometimes, even poorly-constructed searches (according to expert researchers) can still prove successful. This is a chance to observe how different approaches produce different results.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     346 0 7 0     Context terms https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/context-terms__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/context-terms/

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    One kind of search term that is revolutionary for student search experiences is context terms, named by Daniel M. Russell. A context term is a source type that also functions effectively as a search term. For example, if you wanted to find a dataset showing which states voted Democratic or Republican in a given presidential election, you might suspect that this information would be displayed on a map. You would therefore include the term [map] in your query. Long before I started calling them context terms, I was using source types as search terms to locate statistics. Building a query using terms like [study], [report], [research], [survey], and [poll] can be game-changing. Similarly, thinking about the terms that appear in the captions of data sets in scholarly works makes a huge difference. Try searching in an image collection (such as Google Images) for [topic figure OR table] to find the statistical images from academic papers or industry reports.

    You can also use terms for collections of information, like [database], [library], [collection], or [archive] to find the collection that holds your desired data.

    Just be mindful that while the term [statistics] is increasingly being used as a title or in the metadata of pages created by trusted sources, is not always a helpful term in finding quality data. Experts know that quality sources do not say: “here are some statistics,” or “statistics show…,” they tend to say: “a recent Gallup poll found,” or “see Figure 2.”

    Less experienced searchers often discover qualitative results, which may include a sprinkling of data, when using paid databases and open web search engines. When my students are looking for information on Turkish citizens’ feelings about the country’s attempts to join the European Union (EU) over the last forty years, they find articles from a variety of newspapers on online media sites, but somehow never encounter any of the results of the detailed surveys run by the EU itself. My students don’t realize the EU might ask the Turkish people specific questions about their attitudes and publish the results in the form of a statistical report (European Commission Directorate-General for Communication 2013, 1-4).

    One of the big issues inexperienced researchers face is source literacy: an awareness of what kind of sources are even created and available, let alone how to find and understand them.

    Exercise: Experimenting to learn context terms

    I’ve had great luck simply posting a slide with context terms. (See Figure 7.) I then ask students to combine their basic topic search terms with one context term at a time and investigate what comes up. I never know which ones will work for which topic, and the list of potential terms changes by discipline.

    I set a timer for fifteen minutes and just ask them to go for it and get through as many as possible to see what is there. While they search, I stroll around, helping build understanding for unfamiliar formats.

     

    Report Survey

    Study

    Infographic

    Figure

    Table

    Poll

    Survey

    Graph (less common)

    Chart (less common)

    Data

    Statistics

    Fact sheet

    Overview

    White paper

    Presentation

    Conference

    Case Study

    Book

    Forum

    Thread

    Overview

    FAQ

    Database

    Museum

    Library

    Archive

    Collection

    Agency

    Association

    Institute

    Center

     

    Figure 7: A general list of source terms that can be combined with topic-related terms to tease out less-typical results for students.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     347 0 9 0     Associated search terms https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/associated-search-terms__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/associated-search-terms/

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    There are some features that make it hard to search for specific information, yet a clever searcher can use them to great advantage. Novice searchers often forget to look beyond the anticipated headlines about their topics to the ways in which it might be discussed.

    An associated search term is a word that is not directly related to the searcher’s topic, but which has a high likelihood of appearing in the source the searcher wants to find. For example, I can find scholarly studies through paid databases and Google Scholar, but also if I know that [methods] and [discussion] are section headings of papers that may include statistical analysis, I can add them as potential search terms.

    I frequently use this strategy to find projection data, for example. The notion of “projection” has many synonyms: forecast, estimate, prediction, anticipation, expectation, and sometimes the idea of a forecast is simply implied. However, reports of forecasts almost always predict some outcome “by the year x.” An expert searcher can use this convention to find projection data. Consider the query shown in Figure 8:

    Try this queryTo find projections like

     

     

    [childhood obesity “by the year 2020..2050” OR “by

    2020..2050”]

    “The researchers estimate that by 2025, China, which saw a 40 percent rise in childhood obesity between 2000 and 2013, will have the greatest…” (Lepore 2016)

    “The World Health Organization estimated that childhood obesity rates could rise across the globe from just over 40 million to 75 million by 2025….” (Robinson 2014)

    “By 2025, 268 million children aged between five and 17 years old….” (De Graaf 2016)

     

    Figure 8: Using date ranges in searches. Putting two periods between two year dates means, “Look for results between this year and this year.”

     

    Admittedly, this technique is not for the faint of heart. I would not recommend teaching it to others until a clear need arises, but it is great to have in your toolbox for that perfect moment. Just remember, a little creativity can go a long way.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     348 0 9 0     Search with precise statistical terminology https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/search-with-precise-statistical-terminology__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/search-with-precise-statistical-terminology/

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    [Correlation], [link], [sample] and [predictor] can make excellent search terms. For example, to continue with the same topic, the search [predictor childhood obesity] will bring up scholarly articles outlining the predictors, and probably with data to help explain them. Just remember that [predictor childhood obesity] is open-ended and avoids confirmation bias while [exercise predictor childhood obesity] pre-supposes that the searcher already knows what causes obesity and will skew results.

    Additionally, be specific when searching for averages. Have you determined that your research needs are best met by knowing a median statistic? Search explicitly for [median home price Atlanta] rather than [average home price Atlanta]. Consider that most search tools cannot see percentage signs (%), but can see the word [percent OR percentage] (as well as [percentile] – just don’t confuse it with the others).

    Searchers can use specific statistical terminology, as well, to track down studies that make use of a specific sampling method, for example: [childhood obesity multistage random sample] or [childhood obesity longitudinal]. Or, if many of the results one is finding are based on poor or unhelpful methodology, eliminate more of those results using a minus sign (-) immediately before the search term, without a space separating them. Imagine you are mostly getting results that use a method called snowball sampling, in which individuals recruit acquaintances to participate in a study, poll, or survey. In most cases, that method does not lead to valid results. A search like [topic -snowball] will assure that you get no results that include the word snowball anywhere in the document. Similarly, if you need quantitative studies, then a qualitative method like ethnography – while valid – may not be helpful, so [iPad-ethnographic] would eliminate any iPad studies that had an ethnographic method.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     349 0 10 0     Search with terms for parts of a paper https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/search-with-terms-for-parts-of-a-paper__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/search-with-terms-for-parts-of-a-paper/

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    As with using context terms to find a particular type of source, you can use the formal names for parts of a scholarly paper to find your topic within a scholarly paper, as mentioned above. Are you looking for a study that will give you context for what came before it? Use the search term [literature review] in your search query. Looking for press releases, blog posts, newspaper or magazine articles that report a study in more accessible language, but still tell you something about how the study was carried out? Consider using search terms like [method], [discussion] or [conclusion].

    Exercise: Using statistical terminology or section titles to find content

    Select a topic relevant to your participants, or let them chose one for themselves. Simply try combining words describing the topic with some of the vocabulary discussed in the last two sections and ask them to observe what happens.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     350 0 10 0     Conclusion https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/conclusion__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/conclusion/

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    Thinking about responsible statistical language can be a bit frightening, because fewer authors than we would like speak of their work with confident uncertainty, and it can feel to students like equivocating and not appearing expert. Of course, learning to communicate with confident uncertainty where appropriate may also reincarnate the notion that it is best to use “unbiased” sources, when, in fact, such a source rarely exists. In our program, we approach bias and/or perspective as anticipated elements in our sources, and therefore aim to give students to tools to recognize it, name it, and use that understanding to place the facts they are finding in context. We believe recognizing word choices that are emotionally resonant is a powerful tool, critical for both source evaluation and synthetic thinking, and is a habit that — once formed — will become second nature for many of our students.

    Acknowledgements: I owe great thanks to all my colleague-collaborators on this book, many of whom have helped me think through this idea (and many others) that make their way into the research skills curriculum at my school. I owe particular thanks here to Wendy Stephens, my partner on the statistics work in this book, who introduced me to a particular graphic organizer that crystallized my thinking, and to classroom teachers Robin von Breton and Tiffany Christ, who talked with me about my ideas, inspired me with their lesson plans, and let me into their classrooms to teach their students.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     351 0 11 0     Resources https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/resources__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/resources/

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    Abilock, Debbie, and Sue Smith. “No Rush: Thinking about Synthesis/Skepticism and the Brain.” E-mail message to author. May 5, 2016.

    Ackmann, Martha. 2003. The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight. New York: Random House.

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    Equio, Amabelle. 2016. “Research Links Extreme Social Media Use With Disrupted Sleep.” American Sleep Association (blog), Feb. 2. Accessed April 15, 2017. https:// www.sleepassociation.org/2016/02/02/research-links-extreme-social-media-usewith-disrupted-sleep/ .

    European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication. 2013. Eurobarometer Standard 79 Turkey, July. 013. Accessed Apr. 15, 2017. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb79/eb79_fact_tr_en.pdf .

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    Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. 2016. “Scientific Studies.” Episode 11, season 3.

    First aired May 14, 2016 by HBO. Performed by John Oliver.

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    Levenson, Jessica C., Ariel Shensa, Jaime E. Sidani, Jason B. Colditz, Brian A. Primack. 2016. “The Association Between Social Media Use and Sleep Disturbance Among Young Adults.” Preventive Medicine 85, April, 36-41.

    Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ullrich KH Ecker, Colleen M. Seifert, Norbert Schwarz, and John Cook. 2012. “Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13(2): 106-31.

    Loughborough University Media Centre. 2015. “Dehydrated Drivers Make the Same Number of Mistakes as Drink Drivers,” April 20. Accessed June 4, 2017. http://www.

    lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2015/april/54-dehydrated-drivers.html .

    Matteo, Anna. 2016. “Social Media Is Keeping Young Adults Awake.” Voice of America Learning English, Mar. 14. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://learningenglish. voanews.com/a/3236261.html .

    Miller, Jane E. 2004. The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Mueller, Jon. 2017. “Correlation or Causation.” North Central College, Jan. 1. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/100/correlation_or_causation.htm .

    Myers, Maddy. 2016, “According to New Research, if You Love Social Media, You Probably Don’t Sleep Well.” The Mary Sue, April 15. Accessed April 15, 2017. http:// www.themarysue.com/social-media-sleep-deprivation/ .

    Nikolewski, Rob. 2014. “Study: No Connection between Spending, Student Outcomes.” Watchdog.org, April 7. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://watchdog.org/136876/studyschool-spending/ .

    Office of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition. n.d. “Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA+).” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed April 15, 2017. https://www.fitness.gov/participate-in-programs/pala/ .

    Pasolini, Antonio. 2016. “Is Social Media Keeping You Awake?” New Atlas, February 2.

    Accessed April 15, 2017. http://newatlas.com/social-media-sleep-problems/41624/ .

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    Accessed May 4, 2016. Opposing Viewpoints in Context (GALE|EJ3010167271).

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    https://violentmetaphors.com/2013/08/25/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientificpaper-2 .

    Robinson, Erica. 2014. “WHO Warns That Childhood Obesity Could Rise to 75M by 2025.” Medical Daily, July 20. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://www.medicaldaily.com/ who-warns-childhood-obesity-could-rise-75m-2025-293984 .

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    theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/4-signs-the-vietnamese-government-is-crushing-the-countrys-social-media-revolution/273893/ .

    Watson, Phillip, Andrew Whale, Stephen A. Mears, Louise A. Reyner, and Ronald J. Maughan. 2015. “Mild Hypohydration Increases the Frequency of Driver Errors during a Prolonged, Monotonous Driving Task.” Physiology and Behavior 147, Aug. 1, 313-318.

    “What Is the European Hydration Institute?” n.d. European Hydration Insitute. Accessed May 10, 2016. http://www.europeanhydrationinstitute.org/what_is_the_ehi.html .

    Williams, Geoff. 2016. “Could Your Fast Food Burger or Burrito Be Making You Infertile? A New Study Concludes, Possibly...” Forbes, April 30. Accessed April 15, 2017. http:// www.forbes.com/sites/geoffwilliams/2016/04/30/could-your-fast-food-burger-orburrito-be-making-you-infertile-a-new-study-concludes-possibly/ .

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    Driving, Study Suggests.” Independent (London, England), April 19. Accessed May 10, 2016. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/driving-while-dehydrated-canbe-just-as-dangerous-as-drink-driving-study-suggests-10187670.html .

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    Accessed April 15, 2017. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/qualifiers .

    _______. n.d. “Statistics.” University of North Carolina. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/statistics/ .

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     352 0 11 0     Appendix A: Tips for integrating lessons on unpacking language into your research process https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/appendix-a-tips-for-integrating-lessons-on-unpacking-language-into-your-research-process__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/appendix-a-tips-for-integrating-lessons-on-unpacking-language-into-your-research-process/

    image

    image

    If you have five minutes, share these rules of thumb before students begin creating their product:

     

    • When you find a statistic or data set you want to use, step

    back and think about the emotion conveyed by the source in which you found it. How do you feel after reading it? Excited? Angry? Upset? Identify the words that give you those feelings. If the words were different, would you feel

    the same about what you are reading?

    • When you are writing, you may often try to use descriptive language. Consider the tone of your writing. How would you characterize it? Check for intensifiers and qualifiers, making sure you have used them in good mea-

    sure. Add confident uncertainty where appropriate.

    • When you are searching for statistics, are you keeping your searches very simple? Are you trying different terms that are used to describe your topic?

    If you have thirty minutes, provide students with lists

    of words and phrases to use and avoid, as well as some small data sets related to the topic under discussion. Ask them to draft a paragraph using the provided statistics and being careful to craft a narrative employing careful and intentional statistical storytelling.

    If you have one class period, pick a fun opening exercise to get students to think about one way in which words chosen by an author can impact their feelings about what they are reading, such as ranking news headlines on a fun topic by the level of causation implied. Introduce/ review connotation and denotation. Brainstorm a list of synonyms for a common emotion, like “anger,” and then consider the differences in connotation. If students are researching, have them go through a source they are using for their research and identify emotionally loaded language, name the feeling the author is trying to inspire; if they are writing, have them draft a sentence or paragraph conveying statistical information they are

     

     

     

    planning to use, trade with a partner, and check the emotional resonance of each other’s writing.

     

    If you have multiple class periods, use the first day to discuss the impact of language choice in reading and writing, drawing on some of the activities outlined in this chapter. On the second day, teach students a bit about searching for statistical information (based on this and other chapters) and have them begin to identify sources on a topic chosen by them or identified by the teacher. Remind them to keep an eye out for emotionally loaded language that might sway the reader’s opinion.


    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     353 0 12 0     Appendix B: Causation and correlation worksheet https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/appendix-b-causation-and-correlation-worksheet__trashed/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:03:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/front-matter/appendix-b-causation-and-correlation-worksheet/

    image

    In April 2016, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh released a study that found a correlation between sleeplessness and social media use. The study clearly stated that future work was needed to understand “directionality” and “the influence of contextual factors”.

    Consider these headlines reporting on that study (full citations are available in the bibliography of this chapter).

    First, underline or highlight words and phrases that indicate correlation or causation.

    Next, rank them in order from most suggestive of correlation to most suggestive of causation; #1 indicates strong correlation language, #9 means a clear statement of causation.

    ___ “Study Finds Social Media Leads to Sleep Disturbance”

    ___ “Is Social Media Keeping You Awake?”

    ___ “Social media is Keeping Young Adults Awake”

    ___ “Research Links Extreme Social Media Use With Disrupted Sleep”

    ___ “Social Media Use in Young Adults Linked to Sleep Disturbance”

    ___ “How Social Media is Wrecking Your Sleep”

    ___ “Blame Social Media for Your Child’s Sleeplessness”

    ___ “Too Much Social Media Could Mess Up Your Sleep”

    ___ “According to New Research, If You Love Social Media, You Probably

    ___ Don’t Sleep Well”

    Appendix C: Does this sound like correlation, or is there a causal hint, too?

    image

    In April 2016, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh released a study that found a correlation between sleeplessness and social media use (Levenson et al 2016). The study clearly stated that future work was needed to understand “directionality” and “the influence of contextual factors”.

    Read each of these first paragraphs of different news stories on the study. Decide if they are suggesting correlation or causation. Highlight or underline the words or phrases that suggest one or the other.

    Examples

    Just when you thought it was safe to click on that funny Facebook video of an aardvark carrying a shovel to dig a hole under a cinderblock wall while a pair of Peruvian flute-players cavort in green onesies, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have found that social media wreaks havoc on your sleep patterns.

    Obsessive social media use on Facebook, Twitter and similar platforms are linked to sleeping disturbance. According to a study conducted by the lead author, Jessica C. Levenson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at Pitt’s Department of Psychiatry, published in Preventive Medicine, young adults who spend more time checking their social media, during the day or those who frequently check their social media accounts, are more likely to suffer from sleep disturbance.

    Young adults who spend a lot of time on social media during the day or check it frequently throughout the week are more likely to suffer sleep disturbances than their peers who use social media less, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

    Young adults who spend too much time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram may pay the price in poor sleep, new research suggests.

    Social media usage correlates with sleeplessness, according to a new study, although it doesn’t necessarily cause sleep troubles. According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, young adults who spend a lot of time on social media tend to also have trouble sleeping. It’s not known whether sleep deprivation leads to increased social media usage, or whether all that Twitter scrolling is leading to sleep loss — but the two definitely seem to be connected.

    1 The use of the word “average” here is acceptable, because the sentence has already defined the central tendency being used (median). Also, check out what Joel Best has to say about the danger of “Big Round Numbers”: Joel Best, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 30.
    2 For example: Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin, “Memory Enhancement for Emotional Words: Are Emotional Words More Vividly Remembered than Neutral Words?,” Memory and Cognition 31, no. 8 (2003). and Tom Channick, “The 1,072 Words That Will Change How You Write Headlines Forever,” Native Advertising, last modified July 1, 2015, accessed May 14, 2016, http://nativeadvertising.com/contextwords/.
    3 A topic currently being explored by Nora Murphy. See, for example: Nora Murphy, “How to Develop Strong Source Literacy: Practice!” at http://blog.fsha.org/develop-source-literacy/ and her article “Approaching Source Illiteracy, or How a Source Is Like a Frog” in the May/June 2016 issue of Knowledge Quest.
    ]]>     354 0 12 0     Component parts https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/component-parts/ Mon, 25 Jan 2021 01:03:47 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/component-parts/ 495 0 0 0 Critical thinking https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/critical-thinking/ Mon, 25 Jan 2021 01:29:28 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/critical-thinking/ 501 0 0 0 metacognition https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/metacognition/ Mon, 25 Jan 2021 01:56:28 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/metacognition/ 506 0 0 0 read laterally https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/read-laterally/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:10:58 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/glossary/read-laterally/ 518 0 0 0 About https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/about/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/about/ ]]> 6 0 4 0 Buy https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/buy/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/buy/ ]]> 7 0 5 0 Access Denied https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/access-denied/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:36:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/access-denied/ ]]> 8 0 6 0 Thinking: How do we know what we know? https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/main-body/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:42:15 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/main-body/ If you're going to do anything as much as you think, you might just as well learn about it and hone that skill. You may have read quotes or inspirational slogans that claim you are what you think. What does that mean? Can you think yourself into a good mood? Can you think you have a million dollars in your pocket? Does that mean you are the next music sensation if you often sing at parties? Not necessarily, but consider Jose, for instance. He isn’t a rock and roll star, but Jose spends a lot of his leisure time thinking about music, analyzing performances, memorizing his favorite musicians’ characteristics, buying fan clothing, and even designing a creative means to explain his excitement for music to his friends through a homemade video. Jose certainly could allow his fascination to seep into other aspects of his life. Do you have a hobby or interest you spend a lot of time thinking about? Many people go to great lengths to attend a concert by a favorite music star. They think creatively about how to save enough money for tickets; they think analytically about scheduling their other obligations to have time off work to attend or how to make up work in their college classes. This much planning involves a great deal of thinking, and not all about music. In the example about Jose, thinking directs the actions of the person doing the thinking. So, in fact, what we think does influence who we are and how we act. We have many resources available to be more effective thinkers, and learning about these resources gives us options.
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    ]]>     17 0 1 0     Finding: Information, media, and social literacies https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/literacies/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:50:30 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/literacies/ 20 0 2 0 Sharing and Building an Argument https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/sharing-and-building-an-argument/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:54:23 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/sharing-and-building-an-argument/ 27 0 3 0 Protecting and Sharing Your Argument (and Yourself) https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/protecting-and-sharing-your-argument-and-yourself/ Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:55:43 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/protecting-and-sharing-your-argument-and-yourself/ 30 0 4 0 H5P listing https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/h5p-listing/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:37:07 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/h5p-listing/ ]]> 34 0 7 0 Four Moves and a Habit https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/check-your-emotions__trashed/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:46:03 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/check-your-emotions/ 35 0 5 0 Look for Previous Work https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/look-for-previous-work__trashed/ Sat, 11 Feb 2017 23:22:40 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/look-for-previous-work/ 42 0 5 0 Go Upstream https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/go-upstream/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:47:33 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/go-upstream/ 54 0 5 0 Read Laterally https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/read-laterally__trashed/ Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:47:44 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/read-laterally/ 119 0 6 0 Thinking: How do we know what we know? https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/part/thinking-how-do-we-know-what-we-know__trashed/ Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:30:05 +0000 https://ubalt.pressbooks.pub/strategicil/?post_type=part&p=241 241 0 6 0 Thumbnail for the embedded element "Checking a Verification Badge in Twitter"

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