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Web Literacy: Sources 345 Views
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Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:06
Checking Sources on the Web
- 00:09
[ dog barks ]
- 00:10
What's the difference between a primary and a secondary source?
- 00:15
Let's use three examples.
Full Transcript
- 00:16
A primary source -- If you're studying, say,
- 00:19
Renaissance art.
- 00:21
A primary source is a work of Renaissance art.
- 00:24
It is Michelangelo painted something or sculpted something.
- 00:29
That is the primary source.
- 00:30
The secondary source is something that is written
- 00:33
about the primary source.
- 00:35
And it goes with texts, too.
- 00:37
A primary source might be a document from the government.
- 00:41
It might be John Hancock's signature.
- 00:44
A secondary source is something that is about that primary source.
- 00:47
"John Hancock was actually not the first person to sign it.
- 00:51
He just had the biggest signature."
- 00:53
Whatever that is. That's a secondary source.
- 00:55
Primary sources are the best to cite
- 00:58
because there's no -- It just is.
- 01:01
John Hancock's signature is big.
- 01:03
You're looking at it right there and you're saying,
- 01:06
"Hey, check it out. I'm looking at this."
- 01:07
It's basically as objective as you can get
- 01:10
because this is what exists.
- 01:11
But then the secondary source is gonna interpret that
- 01:13
and kind of give you more information about it or whatever.
- 01:16
And that can be trustworthy,
- 01:17
but you just have to make sure that there's no bias in it.
- 01:19
So you're looking at the primary source which is
- 01:21
what was created at the time at the scene.
- 01:24
And the secondary source is describing it.
- 01:25
And there's quality hierarchies
- 01:27
about secondary sources, meaning
- 01:29
if it was written contemporaneously with Michelangelo
- 01:32
and it was his uncle
- 01:34
who hung out with him and cleaned his shop
- 01:36
and he wrote about Michelangelo's work habits,
- 01:38
that's gonna carry a lot more weight than
- 01:39
a PHD writing about that 300 years later
- 01:43
when they have all kinds of gauze in front of them.
- 01:46
Exactly. And it's just kind of like a game of telephone, right?
- 01:47
Because that PHD student probably read
- 01:50
the things that the uncle said
- 01:52
about the piece of art.
- 01:53
That were repatriated by priests
- 01:55
who wrote it on lambskin
- 01:56
and then in 100 years, it burned down,
- 01:57
and someone else did that and they omitted every third word
- 02:00
to save space and so on.
- 02:01
So on the Internet, most of what you're reading is secondary sources.
- 02:04
We should say that.
- 02:05
But you can find primary sources on the Internet.
- 02:08
And, for example, if you're writing
- 02:10
an essay about how blogging has changed the way we write,
- 02:16
a blog is then a primary source
- 02:19
because that's the topic.
- 02:21
I might take so-and-so's blog about baking.
- 02:25
That's a primary source.
- 02:26
One of her blog entries. Or his.
- 02:28
[ laughs ]
- 02:29
But if I then read an article
- 02:31
called "Blogging in the 21st Century,"
- 02:34
that's a secondary source.
- 02:36
So primary sources don't have to be
- 02:37
from the Renaissance. They don't have to be from
- 02:39
early America. They can be contemporary primary sources.
- 02:43
But it depends on what your topic is.
- 02:45
If your topic is baking,
- 02:47
then the blog actually becomes a secondary source.
- 02:49
Because baking --
- 02:51
This isn't the blog entry about baking.
- 02:54
So depending on what your topic is,
- 02:56
different things become primary and secondary sources.
- 03:00
[ pen writing ]
- 03:02
What is credibility?
- 03:04
What are the four categories we deploy in determining credibility?
- 03:09
Why is it so important to understand objectivity?
- 03:13
Can Wikipedia be credible?
- 03:16
How can you check?
- 03:22
All right, next.
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