Ch 15 (Part 2): Evaluating Sources

How to read a chapter about judging sources

§15.3 gives you a two-question framework and a way to handle bias. The trap is collapsing it into 'is this source good?' — the chapter wants you to be more precise than that.

What today is

Planner note 595 covers only §15.3, Evaluating Sources. §15.1–15.2 (the information cycle and finding sources) were the prior reading day and have their own checkpoint.

What today is (2)

Read §15.3 in Top Hat; this page guides it and gives you the checkpoint.

Two different questions

Evaluating a source means answering two separate questions: (1) Is this useful for my project and purpose? and (2) Is this credible, fair, and accurate?

Two different questions (2)

These come apart. A source can be useful without being credible — the chapter's example is reading QAnon material to understand what QAnon believers think: useful for that purpose, but not a credible, fair, or accurate account of reality.

Question 1 — is it useful?

Start by naming why you're using the source: background, context, explaining a perspective, analysis, or support for your own claim. The purpose decides whether it's the right source.

Question 1 — is it useful? (2)

Then check: are you accounting for the source's rhetorical situation (purpose, exigence, audience, rhetor, venue, genre)? Does it show enough complexity (avoid superficial or pro/con framings)? Is it reliable and relevant? A thin source can still help if you put it in conversation with richer ones.

Question 2 — is it credible, fair, accurate?

First, drop the idea of an unbiased source. All sources have biases — a favoring toward or against something. Some biases are fine (a news source biased toward the truth); the job is to take the bias into account and judge whether it reasonably affects the argument or unfairly distorts it.

Question 2 — is it credible, fair, accurate? (2)

Watch for motivism — misattributing a motive to someone so you can dismiss a fair, fact-based critique. A tool like the Media Bias Chart can help you place a source, but it doesn't replace reading it closely.

Judging the argument

Second, assess the argument itself. The chapter's checklist asks, among other things: Where is it published, and is that trustworthy (and trusted by whom)? Is the rhetor arguing in good faith and with complexity? Do the conclusions follow from the premises, and is it internally consistent?

Judging the argument (2)

Does it avoid ethical fallacies (attacking someone's character instead of their argument) and pathetic fallacies (irrelevant emotional appeals)? Does it rely on facts others could corroborate? These take more than one read — sit with the source.

When you've finished 15.3

Take the Part 2 checkpoint: three short questions and one essay, three tries each. It checks the two questions, the bias point, and the argument criteria.

When you've finished 15.3 (2)

Nothing here goes to the course. If a criterion won't come, reread that part of §15.3 rather than guessing.

Final checklist

Tick these off as you go. Saved in this browser.

• I can state the two evaluation questions and explain why they're different.
• I can explain why you shouldn't hunt for an 'unbiased' source, and what to do instead.
• I can define motivism.
• I can name two criteria for judging whether an argument is credible, fair, and accurate.
• I finished the Part 2 checkpoint.