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Mallory Ogden

Professor Stephanie Conner

English Composition 1

21 April 2021

Source Credibility Assignment

1. When thoroughly looking through this chart I have learned a good bit of information. For

starters, the chart is organized by most/least reliable and conservative/liberal. You can see by

the numbers that they range from 0.0 to 64.0 on the overall source reliability. On the political

bias side, it ranges from -42.0 to 42.0. The color coding shows you how reliable and opinion

based they are. For example, the MSNBC news channel is in the yellow and has a reliability

of 43.54 and a bias of -13.75. What that means is that it is especially useful when coming to

getting the correct information but can be high on opinions content wise. One thing that I

have noticed though is that most of the news channels that we use in classrooms seem to be

reliable. Those news channels are PBS, ABC, CNBC, and BBC. On the other hand, the more

popular news channels seem to be less reliable. (Fox News: reliability of 33.12 and Bias of

16.59) That honestly really surprised me considering you would think that the more at home

popular news channels would be more reliable because they have more recent information

from broadcasting more often than the news channels we use at school. It is good to know

thought that what we use in school is useful and not something a teacher may put on just so

we have “busy-work”. Another important thing that I learned is that all the talk shows are at

the bottom of the chart which means that they are not reliable at all and have a real opinion-

based information. That just shows how much controversy these sit-down talk shows can
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cause. An example of these shows is, “The Jimmy Dore Show”, “The Matt Walsh Show”,

and “The Charlie Kirk Show”.

2. 1. An, Brian

2. Research in Higher Education. Jun2013, Vol. 54 Issue 4, p407-432. 26p. 5 Charts.

3. n/a

4. n/a

5. n/a

6. Volume.54 Issue 4

7. Brian P. An

8. 21 November 2012

9. Business Media New York 2012

3. For this assignment, I’ve decided to choose ContentServer.asp (ebscohost.com) as my good

source. To have a good source you must include many things such as, the correct domain name,

certain sources, and additional information to back up your source. A good source develops a

good paper and good information for readers. When looking over a good source it is always

important to take notation on how much information is verified and looked over more than once.

The first thing that I noticed in my source was the domain name. My source uses the “.edu”

domain which is an educational website. When talking about dual enrollment, educational

websites would be the safest and smartest route. Education does tie with dual enrollment and

using this kind of website could get a more educational perspective on high schoolers taking dual

enrollment. The second thing that I noticed in my source was the number of credits and authors

listed. This source includes the authors name, title of the source, number, publisher, publication
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date, and location. Throughout this source, it mainly shows how discussions and experiments

help show the connection between dual enrollment and how it affects students. “The

participation of high school students in different track and curricular locations has important

consequences for their postsecondary opportunities.” (Brian 409) What they mean by this is that

it is shown that when high school students have an opportunity to learn in different environments

it helps prepare them for college. Students taking these college classes helps prep them for the

change in grades and materials when leaving high school. “Coursework is a sequential process

for several core academic subjects.” (Brian 410) A reason why this source is a good source is

because it takes real life scenario’s and ties them with the debating topic to help prove a point

that dual enrollment is good for high school students. Overall, the source that I have chosen has

shown credibility, both sides of the argument, and educational information for the readers.

4. This source gives information about the arguing sides of dual enrollment affecting high

school students. Providing the facts and opinions of both sides in an educational way has

helped show the readers the pros and cons of these classes. “Studies show that high school

academic preparation is a key determinant for college entry and success.” (Brian 410) Having

these different perspectives of individuals included in this document help show the

significance in these college classes. The cons side shows that, “A consequence to the high

level of academic under preparation is the degree to which college entrants require

remediation.”(Brian 410) What they mean by this is that some undergraduate students go into

college not prepared and cannot redeem themselves from that. The best way to use this

source in a paper would probably have to be with an argumentative essay or an academic

essay. The reason why I choose those two essays is because, they can help interpret the pros

and cons with the argumentative or use the academic essay for the more factual or
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educational point of view. The statistics that they use describing the GPA difference in

college and high school would be a great source for both essays. (“A one-grade increase in

high school grade point average GPA is associated with a 0.31–0.37-point increase in first-

year college GPA.”) (Brian 410)

5. “Dual enrollment requires high school–college partnerships, which brings administrators

from both education systems together.” (Brian 411)

6.

1. Staff Writers

2. The Pros and Cons of Dual Enrollment / BestColleges

3. n/a

4. n/a

5. n/a

6. n/a

7. n/a

8. January 20, 2021

9. n/a

7. There are numerous of reasons to why I considered this source a weak source. The first

reason why is because, there is only credibility to the name of the author and the title of the

article. This shows that the information may not be backed up at all nor double checked. The

second reason is because, it uses a very untrusted domain which is “.com”. Having a “.com”

domain means that pretty much anyone can have access to this blog, and it can be changed to

where its only opinion based and does not have facts to support the statements. The third reason

why is because, it barely has any cited evidence at all. Quotations are used to help represent the
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cited evidence in articles and there appears to be no quotations in this article. The fourth and

final reason why is because, the only information is percentages which is not good considering

percentages change over time which means this information may not be true now.

8. Overall, I have learned that there are huge steps when finding the right resources for

projects. When selecting sites, it is important to remember that sites need to have backed up,

quoted, looked over, and up to date information. Looking out for the harder things such as the

publication date, authors name, and version can save you a lot of time. Another thing is using the

right websites such as “.edu or .gov” rather than “.org or .com” can give you more precise

documentation. Finding these sites can not only make your projects correct, but they can also

make them more professional and laid out properly for your reader. Using the right sites can help

you learn tons of new and important information that you may have never thought you needed.