First-Year Foundations

The process of creating information

• Different kinds of information go through different processes to meet different needs.
• At many points throughout your university career, you will be asked to use "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" articles:
  • Published in academic journals.
  • Must meet strict criteria in how they are created and published.
  • Purpose: to share trustworthy research with students, faculty, and other people in a field of scholarship.

Scholarly research in peer-reviewed journals

The process:

• The scholar must get the necessary permissions and money to conduct their research.
  • If a scholar wants to conduct experimental research using human subjects, they often need to apply to their university's institutional review board (IRB) for permission.
  • They also often must apply to their university or to a funding agency to get money to conduct the research.
  • Their application(s) will outline their purpose and plans for conducting the research, such as what kind of study it is, whether they will be working with human subjects, risks in conducting the research, and so on.
• Next, the scholar will conduct their research and write an article describing their findings.
• The research paper is then submitted to a journal and goes through a process called peer review.
  • During this process, other scholars in that field (i.e. the author's peers) look over the article and evaluate:
    • whether the research was conducted correctly and ethically.
    • whether the findings make sense.
    • whether the conclusions drawn by the researchers are well-supported.
  • The peer reviewers may suggest changes or point out issues that the author needs to address.
    • It is possible for a paper to be accepted for publication immediately without any suggested changes, but most papers go through at least one round of revisions.
    • This process may go back and forth several times.
• If the peer reviewers are satisfied with the paper after these edits, they recommend to the journal to publish it.
  • Even after acceptance, there are often several rounds of communication between the authors and copyeditors, typesetters, and so forth at the journal to format the article properly for publication.

Creation process for other types of information

Other information formats may go through different creation processes, depending on the need they are attempting to meet.

• Books or book chapters may be peer-reviewed or may be reviewed by an editor or team of editors.
  • They may be aimed at a general or a scholarly audience.
  • Potential information needs that books and book chapters can satisfy:
    • Discussing topics that require greater length to properly explore and/or explain than is possible in a journal article.
    • Discussing broader topics, as opposed to a more narrowly-focused journal article.
• For conference materials, a panel of experts may judge applications before the materials are actually written, or they may invite scholars to create materials for the conference.
  • The final products may or may not go through peer review.
  • They may be presented as a paper, poster, slides, or another format.
  • Potential information needs that conference materials can satisfy:
    • Sharing very recent findings that have not yet been evaluated through the traditional peer review/journal article process.
    • Sharing recent findings with other scholars in the field.
• Magazine or newspaper articles are usually evaluated by editors who may be looking at articles on many different subjects.
  • Not generally held to the same level of scholarship as peer-reviewed articles.
  • May be looking for general readability and do only basic fact-checking.
  • Potential information needs that can be met with magazines or newspapers:
    • Sharing information with a general audience.

The information cycle as an iterative process

• New knowledge is constantly constructed in response to existing knowledge.
  • Academic article is published ➔ other scholars try to replicate or refute findings.
  • Academic article is published ➔ popular magazine writes about its findings in a manner understandable to general audiences.
  • Book is published ➔ book is reviewed in scholarly journals, on social media, or in the news.

The below video will start 49 seconds in. It will bring you directly to the relevant portion about different kinds of information sources, the timescales in which they are published, and the varying needs they can meet. Closed captioning is available within the video.

Source for this section: Check, Please! Starter Course

How do we get better at sorting truth from fiction for online sources? Follow the SIFT method.

Note: we will talk much more about this at your library session! This is an introduction to what you will learn in that session. 

Stop

Before you share a post/video/article, stop to make sure you can trust it. If you aren't sure, proceed to the other steps of SIFT. 

Investigate the Source

Try to uncover: 

1.  Who is the author and can I trust them?  
2.  Who published the source and what is the reputation of the site/news orgranization/social media account? 

Find trusted coverage

Look for other trusted sources (e.g., well-known and respected news sites) reporting the same facts, data, or story. If you can't find any reputable news sources or scholarly articles to corroborate the story, that should be a red flag that it could be false or misleading information.

Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context

Ask yourself, is this article reporting new information or reporting from existing sources? 

• What is the original source of the major facts for this article? 
• Where did these facts come from? 
• Is the original source trustworthy?

Check your understanding of Evaluating Sources by completing the practice quiz below.

You may also open the quiz in a new tab or window using this link: Evaluating Sources - FFC Practice Quiz