WHAT DOES ALL THIS PERSONAL BIAS STUFF?MEAN FOR YOUR WORK IN UNIT 2? So, bias is everywhere, right? How do we fairly and objectively analyze and evalu
WHAT DOES ALL THIS PERSONAL BIAS STUFF?MEAN FOR YOUR WORK IN UNIT 2?
So, bias is everywhere, right? How do we fairly and objectively analyze and evaluate an argument when we are already biased for or against it? The answer is complex and layered, so I will only offer you these two pieces of advice:
Select an article on a topic that is of interest to you but that you are not terribly emotionally invested in or passionate about. Doing so will minimize the amount of bias you bring to your analysis and evaluation of the argument. This advice is troubling, however,?in that your Unit 2 article forms the basis for your Unit 3 work. For Unit 3, you will offer?a response to the writer of your Unit 2 article,?presenting your own opinion as a rebuttal to the opinion presented in the Unit 2 article, so you will need to feel at least some passion for your topic in Unit 3. Attempt to find an article on a topic that conjures some passion but that you know you can separate yourself from. Refer back to your notes in Unit 1 for a review of this very important necessity to separate ourselves from our analysis and evaluation.
Be aware of your own biases. Know yourself, which also?means knowing the ugly truth?about your own biases. Engage in self-reflection. It’s yucky and can leave us feeling vulnerable, but it’s an important step toward growth. Engage in growth and adopt a growth mindset.
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Some biases are personal, but some are also cultural, religious,?institutional, and even facilitated by mainstream media. Turn inward with Unit 2 before you attempt to turn outward. Your goal is to turn outward, but I recommend taking a deep, hard look at yourself first. It’s hard and we don’t always like or feel comfortable with what we see, but it is essential to your growth as a critical thinker (and writer).
NOW, LET’S TALK MEDIA BIAS & PROPAGANDIC TACTICS
Not all biases are personal; some are actually facilitated by the mainstream media, and it is our job as consumers of mainstream media (domestic and international) to identify and combat media bias and propagandic tactics.
Every society, group,?and culture has a unique worldview, which influences?what the people within that society, group, or?that culture?see and how they see it. News media?reflect that unique worldview, but events happening around the world, domestic and international, are complex, and we have to be willing to look for that complexity when analyzing and evaluating arguments.
In your Unit 1 homework assignments (and now in your upcoming Unit 2 homework assignments), you were asked to identify the political affiliations of the publication in which your chosen articles were published. I asked you to do this because each mainstream media outlet will have a tendency to lean to the political left or lean to the political right, dependent upon such things as?where they get their funding, who owns the publication, which political candidate the outlet endorses, and who reads the publication. Knowing these political leanings can help you identify the existence of media bias. If you can’t identify media bias, you might never know how very much that bias impacts how you read what you read.
BEING A CRITICAL CONSUMER OF THE NEWS AND COMBATING CONFIRMATION BIAS
Media bias is everywhere, and we can’t escape it. We shouldn’t try. We merely need to be able to recognize it and prevent it from impacting our own ability to think and reason critically about controversial issues.
To learn to combat how much influence media bias has on your ability to think and reason critically, consider always
identifying the?point of view?from which a given news story or historical account is constructed (history is written by the “winners,” after all)
identifying the?audience?for whom the text is written (they will have their own expectations)
recognizing what?points of view?are?being negated or ignored
distinguishing the?raw facts?behind the story from the?interpretation and spin?being put on those facts
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Your aim, ultimately, is to become a “critical consumer of the news,” which requires you to
Understand the basic agenda of a news article’s construction (its purpose):
News articles, especially opinion pieces, are not meant to be fair and objective. They are meant to sell subscriptions and ads, to push agendas and facilitate specific beliefs and values.
Use your knowledge of media bias to deconstruct the news article and then to reconstruct it using alternative biases and political stances (from the naysayer’s perspective, for example):
Learn about and understand as many points of view regarding an issue as possible before allowing a news article to confirm and / or sway your own thinking. Because we, as consumers of news, are lazy, we allow others to do our thinking for us, but our ability to think for ourselves (intellectual autonomy)?is a dangerous power to give away. It takes work and required motivation, but understanding multiple perspectives is an essential critical thinking skill.
Learn to identify low-credibility articles, authors, news outlets, and / or evidence:
Any one or think lacking in credibility cannot be trusted and should not be allowed to sway your thinking. YOUR credibility (your ETHOS) as a thinker depends on your ability to suss out entities whose credibility is selfish, overly emotional / passionate, or geared toward the satisfaction of a specific agenda.
Don’t fall victim to your own CONFIRMATION BIAS:
Confirmation bias (simply defined) is when we seek only information that confirms how we already think and what we already believe. Additionally, we tend to interpret new information in ways that allow us to uphold our existing beliefs. Confirmation bias happens most often when we look to get our news and information from the same sources every time and fail to look more deeply for information that supports opposing views. Even social media algorithms are designed to funnel only the news sources to your account that are likely to align with your existing beliefs. Unless you deliberately look elsewhere, you are likely to encounter only information that confirms your existing beliefs.
Part of your goal in Unit 2 is to analyze and evaluate the quality of the argument presented AND the quality of publication and writer presenting it.
OVERVIEW OF UNIT 2
Unit 2 will ultimately culminate (in Week 10) in the submission of a?3-5 page Analysis & Evaluation paper formatted according to?MLA.?The focus of the paper will be an article from a popular mainstream news outlet which presents an opinion with which you?DISAGREE?(selection criteria detailed below). The process for selecting your Unit 2 article is very similar to the process you used to select your Unit 1 article.?The primary difference is that you now much select an article with which you?disagree,?and we will spend the majority of this week (Week 7) working deliberately through the analysis of your chosen article. Next week, Week 8, we turn our attention back to evaluation, but we will hit bias really hard next week because bias is a huge issue in the Unit 2 paper if you do not keep yours constantly in check. Fall Break (October 11 – October 16) and Week?9 are both devoted to drafting,?peer review, and revision with the final paper being due at the close of Week 10 (Tuesday, November 1).
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In essence, we will work on your Unit 2 paper over the next 4 weeks
UNIT 2 ARTICLE SELECTION CRITERIA:
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The article you select as the focus of your Unit 2 work?must meet the selection criteria below. While most of the selection criteria are self-explanatory, the “from a reputable mainstream media outlet” one may not be quite so self-explanatory. The lecture materials and resources to the right?are meant to help you get started with article selection, your first task in the completion of your Unit 2 paper:
The article must present an opinion-based argument (look for the words “editorial” or “opinion” to be somewhere in the title or on the page)
The argument must be about a current (within the last year) and controversial topic
The opinion must be one with which you mostly?DISAGREE
The article must be published on a reputable mainstream media website
The article must be addressing an issue that is affecting American society
A “reputable” news outlet is one that tends to produce news stories that are based on?factual evidence from credible sources. The evidence is clearly cited and can be fact-checked by readers and can be?easily found through minimal searching. Credible sources would be sources that are trusted and are well-known for providing accurate and valuable information.
For the Unit 2 assignment, you aren’t looking for articles that are “value-neutral” themselves, but the publication?that published the article you choose should be fairly neutral in their journalistic aims. For any of the news outlets listed below, you will need to head to the “Op-Ed” or Opinion section to find an article that will work for this assignment. Opinion journalism, like you’ll find in the Op-Ed or Opinion sections, makes no claim at objectivity. These articles typically have a clear political or social purpose and will, therefore, like most opinions, contain?biases, prejudices, erroneous assumptions, and incomplete / one-sided evidence. That is what makes these opinion pieces so fun to analyze and evaluate. They aren’t perfect, but they?SHOULD?still promote effective and productive dialogue, which is why it’s important that you pull them from a “reputable” news outlet.
It is important to note that when presenting an opinion like what is found in Op-Ed or Opinion sections of these news outlets,?authors will actively present one-sided and biased information. The onus is on YOU, dear readers, to be able to recognize prejudiced and / or biased information when you read it, which is what makes this Unit 2 assignment so very important in terms of your critical thinking development. Though you will mostly disagree with the overall opinion being presented, you still must concede that?the opinion will have both strengths and weaknesses. For our work in Unit 2, you must be very aware of??as well as your own personal biases. Confirmation bias occurs when we favor information merely because it confirms our own beliefs and opinions and find unfavorable information merely because is fails to confirm our own beliefs and opinions. We must be able to find value in information with which we agree AND in information with which we disagree.?The problem with confirmation bias is that we tend to leave?favored information unchecked and unverified, having faith that the information is true and is credible, merely because it confirms us and / or our experiences in some meaningful way. Likewise, we tend to tear down information that we find unfavorable, assuming the information must be inaccurate or somehow fundamentally flawed. When analyzing and evaluating, you must be hyper aware of your own tendency toward confirmation bias and keep your own personal biases in check..
USE THE FOLLOWING RESOURCES TO LOCATE A SUITABLE UNIT 2 ARTICLE:
Below are some links “reputable” popular news outlets to help get you started in your search for your Unit 2 article. Just be aware that though these news outlets are considered “reputable,” the articles chosen for your Unit 1 work will be?opinions?and will, therefore, contain biases, prejudices, assumptions, and one-sided information, all of which you will have to identify and evaluate through your work in Unit 2:
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You are certainly not restricted to using just the sites listed above. They are just good starting?places and meant to provide you with solid examples of “reputable” news outlets. Remember, though, you must visit the Opinion or OpEd section to find an article that will work for your Unit 2 assignment.
READ THROUGH?&?ANNOTATE YOUR CHOSEN UNIT 2 ARTICLE
Once you’ve found an article you think will work for the purpose of your Unit 2 paper and have confirmed that it does meet the selection criteria outlined, carefully read and annotate the article. Remember that??is an “” strategy that requires you to invest time and focus into understanding the argument being presented in your chosen Unit 2 article. Remember, too, that active reading requires you to know what information you are supposed to be reading for, which is why you should preview the next section of this week’s lesson before you read through the article a second or third time.
I do recommend reading your chosen article straight through the first time without stopping. These articles are short and can be read pretty quickly. On your second read-through, begin your annotations by focusing on the information highlighted below. This is information?you will be required to include in this week’s (and next week’s) assignment.
Before attempting to annotate your article, though, read through the next set of notes in this week’s lesson.
AS YOUR RE-READ YOUR CHOSEN UNIT 2 ARTICLE, BEGIN COLLECTING THE REQUIRED BASIC INFORMATION FROM?& ABOUT THE ARTICLE’S CONTEXT
FROM THE ARTICLE:
When reading the article for the second (or third) time, focus your annotations by identifying what you think is the?main idea?of the article, the?primary supporting evidence?the author uses to support that main idea, and the?conclusions?the author draws based on that evidence. All of this information will be required for you to complete this week’s and next week’s assignments.
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ABOUT THE ARTICLE’S CONTEXT
After you’ve read and annotated the article, conduct some informal research using Google to identify contextual information about the argument being presented. Consider the following questions as you conduct this research and record your answers on the article itself for use later when completing your homework:
What significant event(s) happened right before this article was published?
Where, specifically, is this argument taking place primarily?
What does the reader of the article need to know in order to fully understand and appreciate the argument being presented?
What type of evidence does the author use to primarily support the argument (personal experience, anecdotal evidence, statistical data, examples, commonly held beliefs, widely accepted theories or opinions, etc.)?
What is the primary political leaning of the?publication?(not the author, the publication)? I recommend using?AllSides?and / or?, websites devoted to ensuring media consumers are aware of known media biases and / or biased information.
What can you learn about the author (additional bodies of work, profession, personal information) that might help understand his/her/their point of view?
What personal characteristics can you find about the author that you feel makes them credible enough to present the opinion being presented?
These questions should lead to more questions (and more information). As you research and discover the answers to the above questions, record any additional information that you find that you think is relevant or could be useful later.
PURPOSE / GOAL / OBJECTIVE:
This identifies the goal or objective of a thought and answers the questions?
What is this author trying to accomplish?
What is this author’s central aim and purpose?
QUESTION AT ISSUE / PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED:
According to Paul and Elder, all thought happens in response to a problem or issue or need; therefore, all thought works to address certain questions. As you review your article (and your annotations of that article), see if you can answer the following questions
What core questions is the author raising and / or is trying to answer?
What fundamental problem does the author see needs to be addressed / solved?
Has the author considered the complexity of the issue being addressed? Why do you say yes or why do you say no?
INFORMATION:
Looking back at what you identified as the core question(s) the author raised / attempted to answer as well as the primary purpose the author was trying to accomplish, consider the information the author?would have needed to collect?information?in order to answer those questions / achieve?that purpose. As you review your article and your annotations and your earlier answers for this week’s assignment, dissect the information the author used to support the argument, to answer core questions, and to achieve the primary purpose. Consider the following questions as you do
What specific information did the author use to draw conclusions made in the article?
What type of information did the author use to draw those conclusion (personal experience, anecdotal evidence, statistical data, widely held beliefs, expert opinions, widely accepted?theories, etc.)?
Does the author provide enough information (and variety of information) to answer the questions originally posed by the issue or solve the problem originally addressed?
Is the information presented accurate and / or true? How can you tell or confirm that it is??DON’T ASSUME! CHECK!
INFERENCES / INTERPRETATIONS / CONCLUSIONS:
Once authors have presented evidence to support their opinions, they’ll often draw conclusions (based on their interpretations of that evidence) or make inferences (educated guesses) based on that evidence. Bear in mind, though, that these conclusions and inferences are?interpretations?of the evidence presented and are not “truths.” Keep in mind, too, that authors generally draw more than one conclusion or inference. Often they draw several throughout a text.
Considering the information you collected by closely examining the evidence presented in your article, identify conclusions or inferences the author has drawn?based on the evidence presented. These conclusions are sometime preceded by words or phrases like “therefore” or “in light of this data” or “based on the results of this study” or “considering Professor X’s theory.” Consider these questions as you work to identify the author’s conclusions or inferences
In what way is the author interpreting the evidence presented?
Is there another way this evidence can be interpreted by someone else, especially someone likely to disagree with the opinion being presented?
Is the author drawing a conclusion?based only on one piece of evidence or several pieces of evidence?
Does the conclusion the author is drawing seem logical considering the evidence on which it is based? How so or how not?
KEY CONCEPTS:
Key concepts refer?to the assumed definitions and values being placed on common ideas. The problem is that we tend to conceptualize common ideas through our own personal lens while ignoring others’ lenses. How we define?them, how we think of them, and the values we place on them differ depending our own unique perspective, a perspective influenced by our own life experiences, our culture, our community, our group affiliations, our values and beliefs, where we live and work, how we play, and how we think.
To be good thinkers (and writers) we should always be explicit in our conceptualizations of common ideas, but consider how utterly exhausting that would be! Since we can’t be that explicit all the time, we leave it up to our readers (or those in our lives with whom we regularly communicate) to infer our meaning of common ideas, of these?Key Concepts. The authors of your chosen Unit 2 articles have done the same thing. As a close, critical reader of?your chosen Unit 2 article,?you must discover how the author conceptualizes common ideas that are at the core of the argument being presented. Once you have delved more deeply into how?the author has conceptualized common ideas, you deepen your understanding of the opinion being presented and what has motivated the author to present the opinion in the way it has been presented, and you see the opinion in the way the author meant for it to be seen, through?their conceptualization,?not through your own egocentristic conceptualization.
ASSUMPTIONS:
An?ASSUMPTION?is typically part of our system of beliefs, and we do not think to question those assumptions. We make hundreds of assumptions every day, but what we have to remember is that assumptions can be either?justified?or?unjustified. If your beliefs are sound, your assumptions will likely be sound. If your beliefs are unjustified, your assumptions will be unjustified.?However, many people develop?unjustified assumptions?based on singular and unique experiences. These unjustified assumptions often lead to unfounded fears. We are all guilty of these unjustified assumptions (referred to commonly as biases and prejudices), but as critical thinkers, we must work diligently to combat unjustified assumptions whenever possible, especially when those unjustified assumptions involve people, places, ideas, beliefs, and values that are different than our own.
To think through assumptions, you will revisit the Key Concepts from earlier, but you cannot simply rehash?your analysis of the Key Concepts. Think more deeply and more critically about those Key Concepts and add to your thinking what you know about the argument being presented and the context in which that argument lives (from last week’s lesson). It is also tempting here to become evaluative and argumentative in your analysis. Resist that urge. You are acting in the role of observer and analyst, not as evaluator (not yet), so you must stay objective and detached from how you personally feel regarding the argument being presented. Once we get to this point in the Elements of Thought, our work gets harder and harder, so your thinking has to get deeper and deeper.
All people take certain ideas for granted, like generalizations or commonly held beliefs, that they do not feel compelled to defend or explain. It is often within these assumptions that cracks begin to reveal themselves in someone??s logical reasoning, so it is important to consider assumptions and to understand them as readers. It is also within these assumptions that people??s?biases,?egocentric?thinking, and?privileged views?begin to show, all of which will play a role in the evaluation of the quality of an opinion being presented.?Analysis inevitably leads to evaluation. You cannot evaluate what you have not analyzed, so before you can?evaluate someone’s thinking, you have to first analyze it fully, but that analysis must be NON-biased and objective, which is what makes it so hard.
IMPLICATIONS / CONSEQUENCES:
Understanding?implications?may be the hardest part of thinking through all 8 of the Elements of Thought because understanding implications requires us to?infer?(to draw conclusion on data collected and presented) only what is?impliedand nothing more. This is hard because we tend to infuse our own opinions and emotions into what others say and do instead of?basing our inferences only on the information that is presented.
It is your job to critically read your chosen Unit 2 article closely enough to?determine the possible / probably / inevitable?implications of the argument being presented. Look for?authors to present “calls to action” or “if / then” predictive statements. Your job is to deeply analyze those calls to action?and?prediction style statements?to determine what the author views as the possible / probably / inevitable implications of the issue / problem if not immediately addressed. If your Unit 2 article author does not explicitly state a “call to action” or present and explicit “if / then” predictive statement, you have to use your new powers of inference to determine those implications. Be careful, though, that?your inferences are based on the information presented by the author and are not infused with your own beliefs, assumptions, preferences, biases, emotions, and experiences.
POINT OF VIEW:
Point of View?may be the hardest of all the elements to gain practical mastery over. On the one hand, it is an easily and intuitively understood concept in theory. People can define point of view as a concept?rather easily, and they can even understand that not everyone will share the same (or even similar) point of view of the same?topic. On the other hand,?when it comes to application, those same people can struggle with a deeper understanding of point of view.
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Good thinkers take command of their own point of view in a given situation, but?good thinkers?(and writers)?will also consider various other points of view of an issue as well and will look at an issue?from various perspectives?when presenting an opinion, attempting to appeal to as many points of view as possible and to support that opinion using evidence that will resonate?with various points of view, not just with their own. We call this “addressing the naysayer,” and “naysayer” is defined as the opposition, the group most primed to oppose the opinion being presented. Most authors will address their opposition in some form or fashion.
A good reader, however,?will be able to see from what point of view the author of a text is approaching a topic, and that reader?will also be able to separate their own point of view from that of the author. We talked about this need to separate ourselves from what we read so that we can fairly and objectively analyze it. This is incredibly important when it comes to point of view. When identifying and analyzing point of view, you must refrain from projecting your own point of view onto the author, and you must be careful to correctly identify and understand the author’s point of view (what’s motivating this author). The author typically provides clues a close and careful reader can use to identify the correct point of view. Good readers will also discover what they can about an author that might help better explain that?point of view (usually through informal research like you conducted for last week’s assignment)
While you will ultimately write a 3-5-page Analysis & Evaluation paper like you did for Unit 1, you will first work through several smaller exercises designed to help you think through and collect information for the writing of that paper, also like you did for Unit 1. However, the process for working on and writing your Unit 2 paper will go much faster than the process for Unit 1. You begin drafting your Unit 2 paper in just a couple of weeks.
This first Unit 2 assignment will guide you through
article discovery,
identification of publication information,
collection of summary information,
establishment of contextual information relevant and important to the argument, and
article analysis, using a review of the 8 Elements of Thought
Each prompt must be addressed fully and in complete sentences. Your responses should demonstrate a thorough understanding of the concepts covered as well as a critical and thoughtful approach to the work.
Type your responses to each prompt in the spaces provided on this document (required). Do not attempt to write an essay or create a new document for your responses. Use this document only. When you have completed the assignment, save it in an appropriate file type (either MS Word or PDF) and submit it to the link provided in this week??s Lesson.
PART I: ARTICLE SELECTION & PUBLICATION INFORMATION
PART II: SUMMARY INFORMATION
Before attempting this part of the assignment, read and annotate your chosen article, paying particular attention to the essential elements required by a summary: main idea, primary points supporting that main idea, and final conclusions / recommendations / call to action.
Refer back to chapter 2 of TS / IS if you need a little extra help with this part. You may also find the Tutorial on Chapter 2 found in InQuizitive helpful. I??ve linked you to that Tutorial under your Required Reading in this week??s Lesson.
PART III: ESTABLISHING THE ARGUMENT??S CONTEXT
PART IV: ANALYSIS OF KEY CONCEPTS
PART V: ANALYSIS OF ASSUMPTIONS & IMPLICATIONS
Now that you have explored the Key Concepts at the core of the argument being presented, it??s time to more deeply analyze the assumptions you think the author has made. The author will have made assumptions, for sure, so it??s time now to further explore those assumptions and to look more closely at the implications of those assumptions as well as the implications of the argument itself.
PART VI: ANALYSIS OF POINT OF VIEW(S)
Now that you??ve analyzed the thought process of the author using the elements of thought, it??s time to define the author??s specific point of view. This point of view reveals through what lens the author is making the argument.
PART VII: ROUGH DRAFT WORKS CITED ENTRIES
You need a Works Cited entry for each of the sources used to complete this assignment, beginning with an entry for the article under your review. You will also include entries for any websites, including sites like Wikipedia, where you found information about the author, the publication, the context of the argument. You should have at least three sources listed below, but some of you may have more. The simple rule of thumb is that if you used a website to learn information required for this assignment, you must cite that information in your ultimate paper and represent those sources on a Works Cited page. You begin that citation work here.
DO NOT simply copy / paste web links into the spaces provided. Attempt to create entries that you think are actually correct. I will help you correct mistakes in entries I feel demonstrate a good faith effort at accuracy, but I will not offer feedback on entries that do not demonstrate good faith attempts at using the resources available to attempt the work.
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