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Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:06

Using Arguments from the Web

00:09

[ bird caws ]

00:10

How can I support my argument with Internet research?

00:14

Basically, in order to make an argument based on Internet research,

00:17

you're gonna just do everything we've already talked about

00:19

in the previous lessons.

00:20

So this is a nice way to review all those strategies.

00:23

The assignment is,

00:24

"Here's your topic. Make an argument for or against it

00:27

and cite sources."

00:29

So what you're gonna do is

00:31

first, do that Google search.

00:33

Try to see what you can find.

00:35

You're gonna then evaluate the credibility of your sources.

00:38

If something's completely not usable,

00:41

just throw it out.

00:42

If you get TMZ or something like that

00:44

or a tabloid, you're probably not gonna wanna use it.

00:46

Throw it out.

00:46

If you get something that's biased,

00:48

subjective in one way or another,

00:50

you don't have to throw it out yet, that's totally fine.

00:52

But you'll get all your sources together.

00:55

That's when you're gonna read through your sources.

00:56

As you're reading through, you're gonna keep in mind

00:58

what's subjective? What's biased? What's not?

01:01

And then you're gonna decide

01:02

do I agree with this source?

01:05

So let's say you end up with three sources.

01:07

Read them through.

01:08

Do I agree with number one, number two, number three?

01:10

Are they all saying the same thing?

01:12

Are they saying different things?

01:13

And then you're gonna say,

01:14

"Okay, you know what?

01:15

I disagree with source number one,

01:17

agree with source number two,

01:19

and disagree with source number three."

01:20

Does that mean we throw out one and three?

01:23

No. It means you use those to prove your own point.

01:27

That's the counterargument.

01:29

You say, "Source one says this,

01:31

but they're wrong."

01:32

So walk us through an example.

01:34

Give us three sources

01:36

we'd look at -

01:37

good, bad, ugly, whatever. Something in between.

01:40

And we kind of use that to our advantage.

01:44

Okay. So let's say there's an article,

01:46

"Do Celebrities Use Their Power for Good?"

01:49

That's the topic.

01:50

And you're arguing either "yes they do" or "no they don't."

01:52

So we have three sources.

01:55

First we've gone through all the junk and we've

01:58

filtered it out.

01:59

We found a tabloid, but we were like,

02:01

"Eh, that person's actually still alive.

02:02

It said they were dead.

02:03

That baby doesn't have eight heads."

02:04

So you moved it to the side.

02:06

You end up with three sources.

02:07

You have an article from People magazine

02:10

that you have kept because it actually

02:12

cites celebrities giving quotes.

02:15

People magazine, in most cases,

02:16

is not gonna be something you're gonna cite in a school paper.

02:18

But if you're writing an article

02:20

about whether or not celebrities do good,

02:22

you can actually get quotes

02:24

from celebrities from this.

02:25

So you're gonna keep in mind that

02:27

it's not necessarily the most credible source,

02:28

but you're gonna use it.

02:29

The next thing you're gonna use is

02:31

an article from the New York Times

02:33

about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt

02:36

and what they have done for the world.

02:39

And just to kind of highlight that,

02:42

you think about what celebrities do that you read about

02:45

that you get lots of press for.

02:47

You read, I don't know, various celebrities

02:52

typically finding large constituencies

02:54

and they put themselves at the front

02:56

to be the spokesperson for it.

02:58

Like Matt Damon trying to be a neutral voice on teaching

03:00

out of the teacher's union,

03:01

even though his mother is a teacher.

03:03

He's trying to present himself as a credible, neutral source.

03:06

You have other elements that --

03:08

I guess things celebrities do

03:12

that nobody writes about

03:14

that are actually acts of kindness or good.

03:17

So the Angelina and Brad thing is kind of interesting to me

03:22

because they practice what they preach.

03:24

They actually did it.

03:26

And you don't adopt a child for a press release.

03:28

A lot more work than that would be worth.

03:30

So there it's a different respect.

03:33

They actually are doing something they really believe in,

03:36

not just to get lots of people to go to buy tickets to go to their next movie.

03:40

So the whole notion of doing good and defining things ahead of time...

03:44

Is that something we should be doing

03:46

before we write the paper?

03:48

Meaning do you come into it with an opinion?

03:50

That it's research you're ferreting out

03:52

so that you look like today's cable news network

03:55

and you're supporting either the Republicans or the Democrats?

03:57

Or is it more like

03:59

you're actually trying to figure out...

04:01

Like, is this all a waste of...

04:03

Yeah, you're always gonna come in with an opinion.

04:04

Almost always you're gonna come in with an opinion.

04:06

But allow yourself to be proven wrong.

04:09

It's never a bad thing to find out you're wrong.

04:13

But you don't necessarily have to

04:16

or you shouldn't necessarily come in with an opinion.

04:19

But you need to understand

04:21

that everyone you are reading

04:22

is going to have an opinion.

04:24

So if you come into this thinking,

04:27

"Oh, celebrities are -- They're all hypocrites,

04:30

they're not actually doing good things."

04:32

Then you're gonna find --

04:34

in whatever you read,

04:36

you're gonna find support for your argument.

04:38

If you come with a clean slate,

04:40

you'll be a little bit more open

04:42

to seeing both sides of it.

04:43

Academics do this all the time.

04:45

They're like, "Oh, you know what would make a really cool paper?

04:47

If I wrote about how this specific author

04:50

was influenced by this specific author."

04:52

And then everything you read

04:55

by author number one,

04:56

you're like, "Aha, this is very Hemingway-esque, isn't it?"

05:00

But if you weren't trying to prove that point,

05:02

you might not see it.

05:03

So if you do come in with your own opinion,

05:06

take a step back and remember that

05:08

so that you don't only see that in the sources you've got.

05:11

To come back to your point,

05:13

the example. So let's say your third source, then,

05:15

is a blog entry by a respected journalist.

05:21

The feature editor of Time magazine,

05:23

for example,

05:24

writes a piece about how celebrities are hypocrites

05:28

and they say they're trying to save the world

05:32

via the environment

05:33

and then they take their private jet to get there.

05:35

Tons of examples there.

05:37

So then you read all these things through and you're like,

05:40

"Okay, piece here, piece here.

05:42

This is what the celebrities say, this is what this person says."

05:44

You have to acknowledge all their biases

05:47

and then you're gonna say,

05:49

"What do I think?"

05:50

And you can think either way.

05:51

There is no -- This is an argument; it's an opinion.

05:54

You have an opinion. You can say,

05:55

"Yes, celebrities are hypocrites.

05:57

They're not doing good for the world."

05:58

Or you can say,

05:59

"No, man, like have you seen?

06:00

They do so much good for the world.

06:02

Celebrities do use their power for good."

06:03

Number one thing - just pick a side.

06:05

If you're wishy-washy about it,

06:07

it's not good.

06:08

Your teacher isn't trying to see if you can

06:12

get all of the nuances of the...

06:14

They're trying to see if you can write an argument paper.

06:16

So pick an argument and stick with it.

06:19

So then what you're gonna do

06:20

is use all three of these sources.

06:23

The ones that you agree with --

06:24

Let's say I've decided that celebrities are hypocrites.

06:27

That blog entry that says that,

06:29

I'm gonna use that as my support

06:31

and I'm gonna say,

06:32

"As this respected journalist says,

06:34

X, Y, and Z. Celebrities are hypocrites.

06:37

They take their private jets.

06:38

Here's an example they give."

06:39

But then I'm gonna use the other sources

06:42

as counterexamples.

06:44

So I'm gonna say,

06:45

"Yes, as the author of this New York Times article says,

06:48

Brad and Angelina have given X amount of money

06:50

and they have flown to Africa

06:52

and all over the world and adopted children.

06:54

But that's an edge case.

06:56

That's one example.

06:58

That journalist only talked about Angelina and Brad.

07:00

My source number three gave 15 examples of the opposite."

07:04

So basically what you're gonna then do

07:06

is use your sources,

07:08

whether you agree with them or not,

07:09

to support your own argument.

07:11

And then we get into the whole

07:12

always acknowledge the counterargument,

07:14

five paragraph essay and all that.

07:16

That's a different course.

07:17

But that's how you're gonna use

07:19

your Internet sources

07:21

to make your argument.

07:23

You're gonna find your sources,

07:25

evaluate them, read them,

07:27

decide if you agree or disagree,

07:29

and then use them as support.

07:33

[ pen writing ]

07:36

How can you use Internet research to make a good argument?

07:40

How important are sources?

07:43

Am I allowed to be subjective?

07:50

I have no idea what you want me to say here. [ chuckles ]

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