High school English teachers, for ages, have taught their young charges how to research and how to write research papers. Regardless of what students may remember, research is far more than 5x9 index cards, bibliographies and outlines. These items are merely tools for the process.
However, English teachers focus much of their efforts on teaching students to seek legitimate sources. How easy this old lesson, when sources were limited to print or video/audio sources, now seems. Back then, we could require information from primary sources, encyclopedias, magazines or newspapers, and authentic books on the subject of choice.
Classes spent days in the school media center so students could research their topics, make notes for summarizing and paraphrasing, gather quotes, and list all of the pertinent data for footnotes and that infamous bibliography.
When I retired from the profession a couple of years after the turn of the 21st century, teachers were already encountering more and more requests to use Internet sources. So new rules had to be added to the old. But the basic remained - know your sources.
Now, the Internet is pretty much the only tool that students want to use. Today, teachers must be even more vigilant in checking sources. Along with the standards, come new rules. Do not use any site a reader can edit. Avoid blogs, websites, commentary. A student may like what an individual says, but opinion is not fact.
For me, the Internet has made it easier to research topics that interest me. However, steeped in English teacher mode, I check the source before I ever open a site. If it is not a legitimate encyclopedia, dictionary, magazine, newspaper, book, government, educational or business site, I bypass it. Also, I’ve learned that many thieves choose to imitate a source. For example, I’ve recently been alerted not to mistake the fake news site ABCNews.com.co for the real site ABCNews.com. I still prefer hard copy books, newspapers and magazines.
The indictments against 13 Russians for fabricating sites, creating social media bots, crafting fake news primarily to divide the citizens of this country during our most recent Presidential elections make English teachers shutter. We want to shout to American citizens, “KNOW YOUR SOURCE.”
This crime in which these foreigners engaged, reminds me of the old adage - “If it is too good to be true, it’s neither good nor true.”
We might desperately want someone to support our own biases, but the Wild West mentality of today’s Internet reinforces the advice offered in purchasing used goods - Buyer Beware. If creating fake stories on fake sites was not bad enough, these now charged Russians also released doctored photos on Facebook which, in turn, were shared by unsuspecting users of social media.
I wonder about those who bought into the disinformation that the Russians pushed under the names of real people. Certainly those whose identity was stolen are angry and are seeking retribution. What about those who, unknowingly, shared spurious images and stories?
How do those who were duped enough by the messages to affect their own actions feel? None of us wants to be fooled. We might smile at an April Fool’s Day prank; but in real life, we want to believe that whatever information we share with others to be the truth. How do those who were deceived feel if they passed along fraudulent information to friends?
Nudging students to use multiple sources for ferreting out facts presents each learner the opportunity to see the same facts presented in differing formats. In today’s world, with 24 hour news coverage, plus round the clock social media, the average consumer is bombarded with some information and tons of opinion. And politics is not the only victim. According to Today’s Dietitian, 70 percent of registered dietitians say that social media is the number one source of nutrition misinformation.
The savvy news consumer must obtain his facts from a variety of sources. If a person watches only one news channel or reads only one news source or takes information on social media at face value, he’s cheating himself. Watching or reading a variety of legitimate sources allows the consumer to feel more secure in what is fact, what is opinion and what is bogus.
As Thomas Jefferson said, “An educated citizenry is a vital prerequisite for our survival as a free people."
Happy Fourth of July!
2018
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