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Extended Essay: Step 5 - Evaluating Information

A guide for everything concerning the Extended Essay process.

What To Look For

Secondary Sources

These are any kind of source that provides someone else's findings or analysis of a topic. These can be scholarly articles from a database, a book about your topic, an encyclopedia entry, or textbook. Because you are relying on the authors of your secondary sources for knowledge about your topic, it is important that your secondary sources be credible. Test the credibility of your sources using these strategies:

Viewpoint

What is the author or publisher's  perspectives or biases on the subject?

Authority 

Who is the author? Why should we believe them?

Currency

How up-to-date is the source? Is that important for your topic?

Reliability

Can this source be relied upon to present high-quality information on all topics and every time?

Comprehensiveness

Will you be able to find the depth and complexity of information that you need to answer your questions?


Primary Sources

These are any kind of source that has not previously been analyzed. It can be data that you collect from an experiment, a photograph, a text, a sound recording or video...virtually anything! In history papers primary sources are usually objects or writing from the time period you are looking at.


In the Humanities

Unlike a secondary source, you will want to highlight the biases in primary sources because they will likely become the foundation of your analysis. 

[Wanted -- AS A COOK AND LAUNDRESS, a tidy girl; must have good city references; German preferred; no Irish need apply. Call at 263 Carlton av.]

In this newspaper advertisement printed in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1883, we can see that there was a strong prejudice against Irish people, even in domestic service.

This will help you to gain context about the era and provide you with an understanding of what life was like during that time.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, 07 Sep 1883, Fri, Page 3.


In the Sciences and Math

In these subject areas primary source materials may be quantitative data or qualitative observations from an experiment. You may use them to prove a causative and/or correlative relationship between data sets.

 In this graph we see that the concentration of ozone in two cities.  The data show that ozone concentration typically rises over the summer in both cities, but at a greater rate in Fresno. A scientist may look for environmental factors in the area that may account for these differences.

 

Cisneros, Ricardo, and Miguel A. Perez. "A comparison of ozone exposure in Fresno and Shaver Lake, California." Journal of Environmental Health, vol. 69, no. 7, 2007, p. 38+. Gale OneFile: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A160752335/PPGS?u=nysl_me_bhsdact&sid=PPGS&xid=ef73083e. Accessed 16 Apr. 2021.

Mis- and Dis-information

Anyone can access the internet, and anyone can publish on the internet. Some individuals and private corporations may put information online for reasons such as financial gain, or to forward a particular political or social agenda. For this reason, we cannot always trust that the information we find online is accurate or unbiased. 

How do I find good information on the internet?

  • Look for websites run by established institutions (governments, universities, libraries, authorities in your field etc…)
  • Steer clear of commercial sites (they want to make money)
  • Beware of bias (it changes your interpretation of information)
  • Check the date  (it might not be true anymore)
  • Consider the site's look (if it looks amateur, it probably is)
  • Avoid anonymous authors (why should you believe them?)

    Adapted from:  Rogers, Tony. "8 Ways to Determine Website Reliability." ThoughtCo, Nov. 27, 2019, thoughtco.com/gauging-website-reliability-2073838.

 

 

Here are seven steps from the World Health Organization that you can take to decide who and what to trust.


World Health Organization. “Let's Flatten the Infodemic Curve.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 2021, www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/let-s-flatten-the-infodemic-curve.

Vertical & Lateral Reading

Vertical and Lateral Reading


Vertical and lateral reading are strategies for checking the validity of the information you find on the internet.

Vertical reading is when you look at the source itself, and decide whether a website looks trustworthy. 

Lateral reading is when you look outside the source to see if the person or organization who published the website is a reliable authority.

For any questions, email Mr. Mulvey at jmulvey3@schools.nyc.gov