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Module One Source Credibility Worksheet
Perspectives in the Natural Sciences (SCI100)
Southern New Hampshire University
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SCI 100 Module One Activity: Source Credibility Worksheet
Overview
In this activity, you’ll evaluate an article about a scientific topic to decide whether it’s credible —in other words, whether you can trust what it's telling you. As a student and in your everyday life, you need to be able to determine whether sources are credible.
Instructions
In this week’s discussion, you chose a news story from ScienceDaily to focus on for the projects in the course. The story was about a topic in the natural sciences that interests you—maybe it was something like deforestation, viruses, or pesticides.
For this activity, you’ll locate a second article on the same topic, and evaluate whether it would be credible enough to use in your academic work. This is valuable practice, because when you’re researching a topic, you should never just rely on a single source of information. Looking for multiple perspectives gives you a better sense of the complexities of your topic.
To complete this assignment, do the following:
Search for a second article about the same natural science topic you focused on in the first discussion. For this assignment, don’t use ScienceDaily; find an article instead from the Shapiro Library.
Choose an article and read it.
Fill out the Article Information table with relevant background information about your chosen article, such as the author’s name and when it was published. This information would help you if you needed to cite your article.
Score the article using the Article Evaluation Rubric. This will help you see how credible your chosen article is.
Finally, answer the reflection questions.
Part 1: Article Information
Fill out this table with as much information as is available about your article.
Author(s) Debjani Arora
Title of the Article Can excess sugar in your diet lead to cancer?
Publication Date/Date of the Last Update
Aug. 11, 2016
Publisher Name/Organization
Athena Information Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Publisher Location/Address (if it’s a book) Volume and Issue Number (if it’s a periodical)
Link to Article go-gale-com.ezproxy.snhu/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&u=nhc_main&id=GALE %7CA579230282&v=2&it=r&sid=ebsco
Retrieval Date Aug. 11, 2016
Part 2: Article Evaluation Rubric
One way to determine how credible a source is to use the C.R.A.A.P. method. This is an acronym that stands for:
Currency Relevancy Accuracy Authority Purpose & Objectivity
The following rubric asks you to use the C.R.A.A.P. method to evaluate your chosen article. For each row in the rubric, enter a score for your article. Then, add up each row to get a total score for the article. A good article will have a total score of 20 to 24.
For more information on the C.R.A.A.P. method, check out the Shapiro Library’s Guide to Evaluating Sources Using the C.R.A.A.P. Method.
Part 3: Reflection
Finally, answer the following questions:
What total score did you give your article, and what does this score say about the credibility of the article? The total score that I gave my article was 21. This source is very much filled with the right information and it is all cited, but it was published in 2016 which knocked off a few points.
What made your article credible (or not)? Discuss the specific criteria that showed your article is credible (or that it’s not). My article has been reviewed and cited. It provides valid information that is very helpful to my research.
Why is it important to only use credible sources? You want to make sure that your information is correct. If your sources is not valid, you can end up providing wrong information in your research.
How could you apply what you’ve learned about evaluating sources to your daily life? For instance, does the C.R.A.A.P. rubric make you think any differently about the media you interact with? The career I am trying to have when I am older is project management. In this job I have to be able to provide valid research to help us conduct our project. If I am not using credible sources to conduct my work, how will I get the information that I need?
Module One Source Credibility Worksheet
Course: Perspectives in the Natural Sciences (SCI100)
University: Southern New Hampshire University
