DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ACTIVITY

Evaluating Information from Internet Sources

This blog post appears in the FAQ section of the Climate Change Truth File section of the website of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. (For another view on climate change, see Figure 5.3 in “Conducting Secondary Research.”) The questions below ask you to consider the guidelines for evaluating Internet sources (see “Guidelines: Evaluating Print and Online Resources in Conducting Secondary Research”).

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Source: Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, 2013: www.cfact.org/issues/climate-change/climate-change-truth-file/.

Question 5.1

1. This blog post comes from a portion of the site called “Climate Change Truth File.” Does this title make you more likely or less likely to consider the information authoritative?

Question 5.2

2. If you were considering using this source in a document you were writing, what information would you want to discover about the site and the organization that publishes it? How would you locate it?

Question 5.3

3. The bulk of this passage is devoted to two prominent scientists who have changed their minds on the question of whether human-caused global warming is a serious threat. If the claim about the two scientists is true, does the case for human-caused global warming collapse?

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