Teach Students to Evaluate Information
Teach students about author credentials and how to evaluate them. Credential is a term librarians often use, but many students do not know exactly what the term means. What is a credential? What credentials are legitimate indicators of expertise? Acceptable credentials will vary from subject to subject, so the definition is hard to pin down. Academic researchers often try to use sources with peer-review processes in place to do the vetting of authors for them. Unfor- tunately, in daily life those academic sources do not always serve. They require extra steps to access, and they often require affiliation with an organization that supplies the sources. Most people receiving news from social media are not likely to check that news against an academic database or other reliable source in any case. It can be time consuming to discover an author’s credentials. Students will benefit from instruction in what constitutes a credential, where to find evidence of credentials, and why it’s worth the time it takes to discover an author’s credentials.
In the same way, students should be encouraged to think about bias. Everyone has biases that shape their worldview. That worldview has an impact on the interpretation of events. In reporting on a controver- sial situation, a journalist should strive for objectiv- ity, but bias can color the representation of the event. It can have an effect on what an eyewitness sees. It can have an effect on the words a reporter chooses when writing a story. Knowing the point of view of the author will help students to identify bias. Biographi- cal information about the author can be helpful in this regard, as is knowing the viewpoint and reputation of the organization the reporter works for. Have stu- dents consider, for example, how a reporter working for the NRA might present information about a school shooting. That same school shooting will probably
be reported differently by a reporter writing for an anti-gun group. When confronting controversial sub- jects, students should be given instruction that will help them find information from both sides of the story. Once students understand why the credentials of authors are important and how those credentials inform the reader of possible bias, have a discussion to help them to understand why they should not rely on anonymous sources of information.