DHE132: Dental Hygiene Theory I

4 Moves And A Habit: A Quick Reference Guide

When confronted with a claim that may not be 100% true, use the "4 Moves & a Habit" strategies outlined by Mike Caulfield in his book, Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers:

The Moves

  1. Check for previous work: Many provocative claims on the Internet have already been fact-checked or researched. News coverage, trusted online sites, or fact-checking sites, such as Politifact or Snopes may have a synthesis of the evidence readily available. 
  2. Go upstream to the source: Check the embedded web links to go to the original source or perform a search to find the original source/study. 
  3. Read laterally: Not all sources are created equal. If you are unsure about the quality of your source, read laterally across other trustworthy sites to find more information about the platform or author. 
  4. Circle back: Sometimes reading laterally will suggest that a source is not accurate, is more complex than you thought, or leads to a dead end. Stop and use what you have learned to begin a better-informed search. 

The habit:

If you're having a strong emotional reaction, whether it's anger, frustration, or validation, take a moment and pause. At these times your critical perspective might be diminished when you should be fact-checking. Slow down and use your moves! 

 

Spotting Bad Science

Review this infographic for quick cues to help you evaluate scientific claims—like cherry-picked data, tiny sample sizes, or sensational headlines. You can open the full-size image or explore the original post from Compound Interest .

Infographic on spotting bad science.

Evaluating Sources

This page explores moving through the process of evaluating both library and web resources in order to select sources that you decide are most appropriate for your research needs.

After reading and completing the tasks on this page, you will be able to:

  • Evaluate the quality and credibility of the resources needed for your research paper 
  • Compare and explain the difference between scholarly journals and popular magazines
  • Identify the parts of a scholarly article and how to find them

Why Should You Evaluate?

Person concentrating at a computer.

 

There is a huge amount of information that is available to you online. It can be tough to figure out what's both a reliable source as well as what is appropriate for your research needs. Use the information found on this page to help you think critically and make an informed decision about whether or not the sources you find are credible as well as relevant to your research topic. 

 

Scholarly Vs. Popular Sources: What's the Difference?

Sometimes your instructor might require you to use scholarly articles for your assignment, but what does that mean? Use this chart or watch the video from Vanderbilt University below to find out how to distinguish between scholarly and popular sources.

Parts of a Scholarly Article

Parts of a Scholarly Article

Scholarly articles are published in scholarly or academic journals. While the content in each journal is subject-specific, these articles share common features.

1

This is a shortened, real scholarly article adapted to highlight its parts.

2

Use it to explore the most common sections you’ll see in scholarly articles.

3

Section headings can vary (for example, an Introduction may appear as Background).

Tip: Click each of the orange plus signs to learn more about that section.

📄 Full Text Article (PDF) You may be prompted to log in with your MEID and password.

This section is a derivative of “Parts of a Scholarly Article” by Kathy Essmiller, licensed under CC BY-NC.

Parts of a Scholarly Article Quiz

Strategies for Reading Scholarly Articles

Chess board and pieces.

Photo by sk from Pexels

Knowing what each section of a scholarly article does and how to read this type of document will help save you time when you are searching for sources. You don't have to read the entire article to decide whether or not it might be useful for your research needs. Here's a few strategies you can use when reading to help you evaluate:

  1. Read the abstract and title to get an overview and decide whether or not the article is relevant to your topic.
  2. From there, focus on the introduction and conclusion to get a better understanding of the article.
  3. Skim the headings and view the tables and graphs to help you evaluate the article's relevancy.
  4. Once you're sure that it relates to your research topic, you can read the whole article, taking notes on any terms you don't understand so that you can look it up later.
  5. Don't forget to keep track of the citation information! This will help you later on as you put together your resource list.