Encouraging Critical Thinking Online

Unit 1

Checking Facts and

Gathering Opinions

On what date did World War II start?

• Find three websites that provide an answer

• Fill in the boxes on the worksheet for each of them

• Comment on any notable features of the sites or answers you discover

On what date did World War II start?

• The answer depends on how one interprets the question – What constitutes the true beginning of

a war?– Whose perspective are we considering

events from?

On what date did World War II start?

• Popular answers include 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, and 3 September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany

On what date did World War II start?

• However, there are arguments for both earlier and later dates– Hostilities in Asia began earlier in the

1930s– Some argue it wasn’t a true world war

until the USA became involved in 1941

Extract from U-S-History.com

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1661.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Chronology Retrieved 7 August 2008

Extract from Wikipedia article on World War II

Wikipedia article notes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#References Retrieved 7 August 2008

Wikipedia article notes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#References Retrieved 7 August 2008

On what date did World War II start?

• Searches for phrases like “World War II start date” or “When did World War II start?” bring up a range of results– Question and answer sites– Essays and overviews

Results of Google search for “When did World War II start?”

http://www.google.co.uk/ Retrieved 7 August 2008

A Yahoo! Answers page

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060620173709AA7G8pe Retrieved 5 June 2008

On what date did World War II start?

• However, notice that a search like this produces a high proportion of non-scholarly results

• Q&A sites give a range of answers – but some of those answers are wrong!– See, for example, this WikiAnswers page

• A lot of sifting and evaluation is required

WikiAnswers: the second hit for the Google search “World War II start date”

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_exact_time_and_date_did_world_war_2_start Retrieved 4 June 2008

WikiAnswers: the second hit for the Google search “World War II start date”

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_exact_time_and_date_did_world_war_2_start Retrieved 4 June 2008

On what date did World War II start?

• Because there’s no clear single answer, more scholarly sites may not specify a start date – Therefore they may not show up in a

search using this phrase

• Careful choice of search terms is vital

On what date did World War II start?

• Searching for a phrase like “World War II timeline” produces a rather different set of results– More sites devoted to history– More sites intended for academic use– But not all sites are equal – there’s still

a need for careful selection

Results of Google search for “World War II timeline”

http://www.google.co.uk/ Retrieved 7 August 2008

Extract from BBC History website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/ww2_summary_01.shtml Retrieved 7 August 2008

Summary - key things to note

• Sometimes it’s necessary to discover part of the answer to enable effective searching for the rest

• The nature of some sites may make them more prone to error

Why might we find conflicting answers to a question?

• There may be real uncertainty about the answer

• Authorities may disagree

• There may be multiple ways of interpreting a question

Why might we find conflicting answers to a question?

• Some sources may be more up to date than others

• Answers may vary in precision

• Some sources may simply be wrong

Questions to ask when assessing sources

• Who is the author?– An individual or an institution?– What are the author’s credentials?

• Is this a scholarly resource, or a more informal one?

• How up to date is this source?

Questions to ask when assessing sources

• Are there reasons to doubt the reliability of this source?– Does it include information I know to

be false?– Does it contradict itself or use poor

reasoning?– Is it biased towards a particular view?

Questions to ask when assessing sources

• Is the information provided confirmed by other sources?– Are references provided?– Do other websites agree? (A major

advantage of the Web is that many sources can be compared quickly and easily.)

Remember the three Ws

• WHO wrote this site? – Is the author a trustworthy source?

• WHEN was it written? – Is it up to date?

• WHY was it written?– Does the author have an axe to grind?

This slideshow is part of

Encouraging Critical Thinking Online,a set of free teaching resources

designed to develop students’ analytic abilities,

using the Web as source material.

For the full set, please visit Intute Training:

http://www.intute.ac.uk/training/