Stay source critical to the information you find, especially when it comes to material freely available online. Always try to find and cite the primary source in your papers, instead of secondary sources where the information can be misinterpreted or false.
Pay attention to how your digital foot steps are stored in online search engines. This means that you will receive information based on who you are, your interests, your search history, your location and what sites you have visited before.
The film below from Code.org (5:12) explains shortly how an Internet search works:
Watch an interactive presentation over how a Google search works:
How to spot fake news:
|
Source: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
bias |
= a tendency to believe things that reinforces a persons previous beliefs or ideology. |
deepfake |
= an artificial image or film produced by computers in order to seem true or real. |
disinformation |
= false information being deliberately spread. |
fake news |
= invented information resembling real news but created with the goal to distort facts or to mislead the reader. |
filter bubble |
= can lead to a state of isolation where the information a person reads only mirrors one's existing beliefs or ideology. |
infodemic |
= the spread of unverified information related to a specific crisis or event. Rapid and uncontrolled dissemination, leads to speculation or anxiety. |
misinformation (or false information) |
= the unintentional spread of wrong or misleading information. |
primary source |
= the source where the information or the research results are published for the first time. |
pseudoscience |
= beliefs mistakenly considered as scientific, for example astrology. |
secondary source | = a source commenting on, analyzing, or summarizing existing research. |
troll farm | = a group of persons systematically spreading disinformation online. |
Sources: Oxford English Dictionary and Nationalencyklopedin
Source criticism according to the SIFT-method follows four steps:
Källa: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/.
Would you like to start your project by reading the most influential articles written on the topic? Make sure that you don't miss including the classics to your paper. For this you might want to find out which articles are the most cited.Try using a citation database. We have currently access to three citation databases:
Check the quality of a journal by using the rankings in the Finnish Publication Forum (Publikationsforum, Julkaisufoorumi JUFO). Journals ranked 1-3 contain peer reviewed articles. Articles published in journals ranked 0 (zero) have not undergone peer review.
UlrichsWeb is another tool for checking whether a certain journal includes a referee process.
If unsure, please ask your teacher or contact the library!
An academic text is characterized by
A good scientific article is characterized by