Remember the pregnant man

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Remember the pregnant man!

• Guiding Students to Think about the Reliability
  of Sources

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We live in times when information is easily
available, but . . .

• Can we trust the information we find?
• Our students often believe we can!
• The National Council of Teachers of English
  polled 900 teachers of language arts about what
  21st-century students most need to learn.
• Respondents said that the most important
  21st-century literacy skill is the ability to
  seek information and make critical judgments
  about the veracity of sources (Writing between
  the Linesand Everywhere Else, 1).

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Research Skills Finding Information AND
Evaluating It

• Finding information is important, of course, but
  it is something weve always taught.
• The 21st-century difference is that we no longer
  face any scarcity of information on most
  subjects.
• The 21st-century problem (at least at this point
  in the century) is that much of the available
  information is biased, outdated, inaccurate, or
  aimed at a different audience.

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Its a 21st-century problem, but is it really new?

• The existence of search engines and the World
  Wide Web makes us more aware of the problem, but
  we have always had to evaluate the sources we use
  in research.
• Books and journals can be biased or outdated or
  simply not authoritative.
• The clear need to evaluate online materials may
  actually make it easier for undergraduates to
  understand that we have to be careful with all
  sources.

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• This presentation describes a sequence of
  exercises Ive been using for the past few years
  to help students learn to think about the online
  sources they decide to use.
• Students seem to enjoy the work, and although I
  havent done any formal surveys, they also seem
  to remember at least some of the information.
• In addition, I enjoy interacting with students
  when they are working on these labs. When an
  English teacher can enjoy teaching the research
  paper, its an occasion worth noting!

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Background

• At Winston-Salem State University, students take
  a two-semester freshman composition course.
• ENG 1301 is a standard first-semester composition
  course. ENG 1302 is literature-based. Both
  courses require students to write research
  papers.
• All sections have Blackboard available and
  normally all sections meet in a computer
  classroom once a week.

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• On lab days, my students are instructed to open
  Blackboard and click on the Labs button. Early
  in the research paper unit, the lab exercise
  deals with evaluating sources.

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• The key sites for this exercise are the two
  hospital links.
• One is local and real,
• but the other is a hoax site that students are
  not likely to have seen before.

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• The WFUBMC site belongs to a medical center in
  our city.
• The RYT Hospital site (http//www.rythospital.com/
  2008/) looks very much like a real hospital site,
  but it is actually an elaborate and somewhat
  frighteningly believable art project (I think!)

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(No Transcript)
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The RYT site looks real, but as students explore
they find research projects like the one on
NanoDocs

• RYT Hospital patients can monitor their health
  in real-time via nanotech robots, or NanoDocs,
  which live and travel within their blood and
  tissue.
• Theres even an impressive animation of medical
  nanites

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Then theres Genochoice

• Using our state-of-the-art technologies, you can
  quite possibly ensure that your child's life may
  be free of such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's,
  and heart disease -- as well as conditions like
  obesity, aggression, and dyslexia.

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Clyven (the Mouse with Human Intelligence)

• By implanting human brain cells (grown from a
  human embryo's stem cells) into a mouse
  engineered to have Alzheimer's, Dr. Keyes
  inadvertently made a remarkable and startling
  discovery she not only cured the mouse's
  Alzheimer's Disease, but the animal soon
  developed the relative intelligence of a human
  being.
• Visitors are invited to chat with Clyven or
  listen to an audio feed from his cage.

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Pop! The First Male Pregnancy

• The pregnant man is not described as being
  transgender, though he is said to send his
  congratulations to fellow pregnant dad Thomas
  Beatie.
• There are videos, an ultrasound, even a very
  convincing image of a U.S. News and World Report
  cover.

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Wait a minute . . .

• At some point, students realize the site is a
  hoax.
• I walk around looking over their shoulders,
  waiting for them to tell me that it cant be
  real.
• Then we discuss how they knew something was
  wrong. Whatever they have noticed usually hinges
  on something they know (like how the uterus
  works) that makes the research impossible.

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• By this time, students get it when I say that
  if theyre going to believe anything they find
  online, they might as well do research by
  standing on a busy sidewalk and asking the people
  who walk by what they think about the subject.
• During the rest of the lab, students seem to pay
  close attention to tutorials and lists of
  criteria that will help them learn to judge a
  sites reliability. The list of sites I use
  appears on the next slide.

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• ICYouSee T is for Thinking (http//www.ithaca.e
  du/library/training/think.html) This is a helpful
  tutorial with some funny links. Everyone should
  go through this tutorial at some point during or
  after the lab.
• Evaluating Information Found on the Internet
  (http//www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/e
  valuating/index.html ) This isn't a tutorial, but
  it's more elaborate and informative than a simple
  list of criteria. The section on "Point of View
  or Bias" is particularly good.
• Evaluating Online Sources A Tutorial
  (http//bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/techcomm/content/
  cat_030/evaluatingsources/index.html ) You may
  need to go to the Concise Guide to Writing home
  page, sign in, and then go to this page--the link
  is in the upper right quadrant of the page.
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
  (http//lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html) This
  site gives criteria and includes examples of
  unreliable pages.
• Checklist for Evaluating Web Sites
  (http//www.wssu.edu/WSSU/About/Administration/Inf
  ormation20Resources/C.G.20OKelly20Library/RGChe
  cklist ) This is O'Kelly Library's guide to
  evaluating web sources. It has good information,
  and there are some very good links (like The
  Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) at the bottom of the
  page.

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A pregnant man is hard to forget . . .

• Even late in the next semester, students who have
  looked through the RYT Hospital site are likely
  to pay at least some attention to whether a site
  is reliable.
• If they seem to be impressed by something flashy
  but not necessarily reliable, all I need to say
  is Remember the pregnant man!

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Evaluating Reliable Sites

• Recognizing unreliable sites is important, but
  its not all there is to judging sources.
• During the second semester, students complete a
  lab designed to help them think about how to
  proceed when apparently reliable sources provide
  conflicting information.
• Most of the exercise deals with online sources,
  but the principles apply to other sources as well.

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The first part of the lab gives students an
opportunity to review some of the materials used
in the previous course
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Next students look at sites that give some
conflicting information about Langston Hughes
background and early career

• They find that PBS Kids says Hughes grew up in a
  wealthy, well-educated family in the Midwest and
  traveled abroad.
• Other sites say that Hughes came from a
  distinguished family, but that he and the
  grandmother who reared him were very poor.
• Students decide which site they believe about
  this and some other issues and then post
  discussion board entries about which site they
  believe and why.

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The final part of the exercise directs students
to two pages that feature the same picture.

• The PBS Kids site identifies it as Langston
  Hughes as a student at Lincoln University, 1928
• The Kenneth Spencer Research Library of the
  University of Kansas, on the other hand,
  reproduces a book cover with the same picture and
  says The photograph on the front was taken in
  Tashkent, U.S.S.R., in 1933.

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Which Site to Believe?

• Students have been taught to respect PBS, and
  they have also been taught to respect university
  libraries. They cant go by reputation alone.
• They are asked to think If you had to judge
  between these conflicting statements, where and
  when would you judge that this picture was
  probably made? (Consider where the page you are
  looking at is located, what purpose it seems to
  be intended to serve, what kind of sources the
  author of the page probably used, etc. This is
  not an easy question, and it does not have an
  obvious answer. For this part of the exercise,
  feel free to look for more information on other
  sites if you think of some good places to look.)

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Which Site to Believe?

• Most students work busily and make a decision,
  again posting their reasons on a discussion
  board.
• At the following class meeting, I show a slide
  show that looks at some of the ways one might go
  about deciding whom to believe.
• The next few slides have been copied from
  Langston Hughes Online Judging the Quality of
  Apparently Reliable Web Sources

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This picture appears at http//spencer.lib.ku.edu/
exhibits/langston/poetry.htm , a web page
maintained by the Kenneth Spencer Research
Library at the University of Kansas, with this
label This educational pamphlet, published in
1967, provides information about Hughes and his
work. The photograph on the front was taken in
Tashkent, U.S.S.R., in 1933.
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However, the same picture appears at
http//pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/arts/topic10.ht
ml with the caption Langston Hughes as a student
at Lincoln University, 1928.
Both of these sites should be reliable, since one
is a research library at a major university and
the other is an educational site maintained by
PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, a
recognized source of educational programming.
How shall we decide whom to believe when reliable
sources disagree?
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Some possible criteria

• Is the rest of the page accurate?
• Do the dates fit with what is known of LHs life?
• Is that Hughes signature?
• How does the suggested date relate to LHs
  apparent age in the picture?
• How well does the suggested setting match the
  visual image?
• If we decide one is correct, can we explain the
  error in the other?
• Do other reliable sources provide any help?

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Is the rest of the page accurate?

• The Univ. of Kansas Library site has pictures of
  the items in an exhibition about LH. Nothing in
  the captions appears unlikely.
• The PBS Kids site says Hughes . . . grew up in a
  wealthy, well-educated family in the Midwest and
  travelled abroad. But until he was 13 LH lived
  with his grandmother, who was well-educated but
  often had little money. In The Big Sea, his
  autobiography, Hughes says We were poor. . . .
  He did travel abroad, but he traveled as a
  worker on a cargo ship. However, the family
  Hughes came from was very distinguished and
  well-educated, so possibly the PBS sites author
  incorrectly assumed that being distinguished
  automatically means being wealthy. Thus this
  error can be explained.

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Is that Hughes signature?
We need to compare this signature to one reliably
attributed to LH.
The signatures are similar, so it appears that LH
himself probably wrote the caption. However, he
wrote it on a booklet published in 1967. so he
cannot have written it before that date, over 30
years after his visit to the USSR.
Am I/Are you always accurate about pictures made
even 10 years ago? How about 30?
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If we decide one source is correct, can we
explain the error in the other?

• The identification made by the KU library
  probably rests on the annotation in LHs
  handwriting. But we know that annotation must
  have been made 30 years after the picture was
  made. Furthermore, LH appears to have put a
  different year in a note written on another copy
  of the pamphlet that belongs to the University of
  Delaware.

By 1936, Hughes was back in the U.S., so that
date cannot be right. However, it is clear that
he said at least twice that the picture was made
in Tashkent.
31
The PBS Kids site says its picture came from
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,
so the Lincoln University identification may have
come from there. We do not know what sources the
scholars at PBS or the Schomburg used, but
possibly the picture was identified by someone
who simply knows the campus of Lincoln
University. At any rate, PBS and the Schomburg
Center are both known as very reliable sources,
and on this issue there is no obvious way to
explain an error made by either. At this
point, we need to turn to print sources.
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Consulting Print Sources

• In The Life of Langston Hughes Vol. I
  1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America, Arnold Rampersad
  reprints the photo between pp. 182 183.

Rampersad is a careful researcher and his
biography is regarded as authoritative, so it is
highly likely that his identification is correct.
The picture was probably made at Lincoln
University in 1928. However, if that is true,
Hughes himself apparently misidentified the
picture at least twice!
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• The first time I used this exercise, I was
  inclined to think the Tashkent identification was
  correct because of the PBS Kids site error about
  Hughes familys poverty (and because I too
  respect university libraries).
• At the next class meeting, two proud young ladies
  showed me the identification in Rampersads
  biography. They had actually been interested
  enough to go and look something up! It was one of
  the high points of my career.
• Of course, even Arnold Rampersad could be
  mistaken. If anyone who views this presentation
  can provide further information, Ill be
  delighted to hear it.

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Works Cited and Web Sites Used in These Exercises

• Beck, Susan E. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
  or, Why Its a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources.
  1997. New Mexico State University Library. 17
  Mar. 2009 ml.
• Henderson, John R. ICYouSee T Is for Thinking.
  16 Jan. 2008. Ithaca College Library. 17 Mar.
  2009 /training/think.html.
• Hughes, Langston. The Big Sea. New York, Hill and
  Wang, 1963.
• Kirk, Elizabeth E. "Evaluating Information Found
  on the Internet." The Sheridan Libraries. 1996.
  Johns Hopkins University. 17 Mar. 2009
  valuating /index.html.
• "Langston Hughes." PBS Kids Go Big Apple
  History. 2005. Thirteen/WNET New York,
  Educational Broadcasting Corporation. 17 Mar.
  2009 c10.html.
• "Langston Hughes the Poet." Langston Hughes A
  Voice for All People. Curated by Sheryl Williams.
  Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research
  Library, University of Kansas. 17 Mar. 2009
  ry.htm.

For a clickable version of this list, go to
http//myweb.wssu.edu/wallr/tlt.htm .
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Works Cited and Web Sites Used in These Exercises

• "Library Guides - Checklist for Evaluating Web
  Sites." 2005. C. G. O'Kelly Library,
  Winston-Salem State University. 17 Mar. 2009
  ormation20Resources/C.G.20OKelly20Library/RGChe
  cklist.
• Munger, Roger. Evaluating Online Sources A
  Tutorial. Bedford / St. Martin's. 17 Mar. 2009
  /techcomm/content/cat_030/evaluatingsources/index.
  html.
• Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes
  I, Too, Sing America. Vol. 1. New York Oxford
  University Press, 1986. 2 vols.
• RYT Hospital Dwayne Medical Center. 2008. 17
  Mar. 2009 .
• Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. 9
  Feb. 2008. Wake Forest University School of
  Medicine and North Carolina Baptist Hospitals. 17
  Mar. 2009 .
• Wong, Virgil. "RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical
  Center." Virgil Wong. 2008. 17 Mar. 2009
  /rythospital/index.shtml?name1RYTHospitaltype1
  2Active.
• "Writing between the Lines--and Everywhere Else
  A Report from the National Council of Teachers of
  English." NCTE National Council of Teachers of
  English. Mar. 2009. National Council of Teachers
  of English. 17 Mar. 2009 ary /NCTEFiles/Press/WritingbetweentheLinesFinal.p
  df.