Fact or opinion

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Fact or opinion

• Using advanced search to locate information

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• When viewing a web page for its content and style
  of information we need to consider
• whether information is fact or opinion
• what viewpoints it offers personal, group,
  company, political party
• how clear and accessible it is easily
  understood, good layout, sufficient detail

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The next slides give some statements you might
read

• Decide if each is fact or opinion!!

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Fact or opinion?
I think that classical music is boring.
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Fact or opinion?
August follows July every year.
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Fact or opinion?
16-year-olds should be eligible to vote in a
general election.
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Fact or opinion?
Orange juice seems much tastier than apple juice.
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Fact or opinion?
Sunderland is a better football team than
Newcastle.
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Fact or opinion?
It is a long way from here to Germany.
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Fact or opinion?
Its a wonderful day!
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Fact or opinion?
Earth is a planet, not a star.
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Accurate and reliable

• The following are actual statements made by
  people.
• Were they a reliable source of information?
• Were their statements accurate?

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How accurate and reliable?
In 10 to 20 years time, we will be able to
build new organs artificially and replace an
organ with something synthetic. Dr Tom Okarma,
President and Chief Executive, Geron Corporation,
California
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How accurate and reliable?
There will be a permanent lunar base and a
manned exploration of Mars some time this
century. Martin Rees, Royal Society Astronomer,
Cambridge
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Authoritative statements
I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers. Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
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Authoritative statements
The world potential market for copying machines
is 5000 at most. Response from IBM to the
founders of Xerox, 1959
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fact? opinion?
bias

• If the information comes from someone as their
  opinion, then it might be biased
• Who would you ask if you wanted to know
• whether nuclear power is a good thing?
• If smoking affects your health
• If genetically modified food is a good thing

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accuracy? reliability?
validity
If the data is not accurate, how valid is the
conclusion? Example you have data on the
affects of smoking on men, can you use it to say
what the affect is on women? If the data is not
reliable, how valid is the conclusion you
make? Example you ask 10 friends about what
music they like, can you use this to say what
music young people like?
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Finding information the advanced search

• Reducing the amount of information you have to
  sift through will make it easier to decide on
  bias and validity and make better information
  source choices

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Click on here to go to the Advanced Search page
Slide 20
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(No Transcript)
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A quick way to advance search

• Put the search phrases in inverted tick
• If you want Manchester United you should type
  Manchester United into the search bar
• If you want Lord of the rings, you type in Lord
  of the Rings
• In general, capital letters will not make a
  difference

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Example using Advanced Search to find out about
Ralph Allen School in Bath

• ralph allen bath gave 15100 pages with the Bath
  postal museum being top
• ralph allen school bath gave 6820 different web
  pages, the top one being about bus travel
• ralph allen bath gave 997 pages
• ralph allen school bath gave 286 pages with
  Ralph Allen School being third on the list
• ralph allen school bath gave 36 pages with the
  first page being about the school

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When you consider the reliability of a website,
you must also think about

• the URL, for example .gov, .ac, .ed, .org, .co,
  .com, .sch
• endorsements, e.g. NgFL
• the date of the last update
• advertisements
• links to and from the website