How Do I Learn About New

Topics?: Evaluating Potential

Information Sources
Prof. Mark A. McGinley
Professor of Teaching and Head, Science Unit
Director, Core Curriculum and General Education Office
Lingnan University
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lesson a fully-engaged student should be able to
1) locate sources of reliable and useful information on the internet, media, etc.
2) evaluate the accuracy and reliability of that information and explain why they
have drawn these conclusions
3) use this information to learn about new topics on their own
4) Be able to explain the difference between primary and secondary sources
5) Discuss why becoming a life-long learner has been chosen as an important
graduate attribute by Lingnan University
Lots Has Changed Since I Received by Bachelor’s Degree
from University California, Santa Barbara in 1980

Dial phones attached to the wall No internet, had to read books

No cars, ok we had cars back then…

No word processors, typewriters I just like Fred Flintstone
Many of Today’s Critical Issues Were Not an
Issue or Were Much Smaller Problems Then
• Global Climate Change
• Artificial Intelligence
• Aging Populations
• Plastic Waste in the Oceans
• Antibiotic Resistance

• Thus, I did not learn about these topics during university

• I have learned about all of these topics on my own, without formal
instruction.
You will spend a long life following your 4
years studying at Lingnan University
• The average age expectancy in Hong Kong is over 84 years!
• That means that it is not unreasonable for you to live 60 more years after
you leave the university!!!
• Think about how things may change in that time!!
Lingnan University Preparing You For a
Changing World: Graduate Attributes
• Scholarly and Interdisciplinary
• LU graduates will have a secure grounding in a chosen
academic field(s) and cross-disciplinary applications.
• Digitally Literate
• LU graduates will have proficiency in technology.
• Skilled Communicator
• LU graduates will have excellent communication skills,
including oral and written English and Chinese
(Putonghua as well as Cantonese) skills.
• Critical and Analytical
• LU graduates will demonstrate independent critical
thinking and strong analytic competence.
• Creative and Entrepreneurial
• LU graduates will be creative problem-solvers and be
capable planners, and entrepreneurs.
• Committed to Service
• LU graduates will have a commitment to
service to the community.
• Glocally Minded
• LU graduates will have a global and local (a
Glocal) outlook with the ability to
understand various cultural perspectives.
• Personally and Socially Responsible
• LU graduates will have tolerance, integrity,
civility and a sense of responsibility.
• Committed to Life-long Learning
• LU graduates will have a desire for life-long
learning.
We All Need to Learn New Things: How??
How to Learn New Things?
• We could learn everything • Sometimes we may need to
ourselves? learn new things because the
• Experience answer is unknown
• Observations • Research
• Trial and error
• Scientific Method
How to Learn New Things?
• Learn What is Already Known
• Humans are a long-lived social
species
• Effective communicators
• Extended childhood, extensive
parental care
• Informal and formal education
• Can pass on information that is
already known
We Will All Need to Learn New Things
Learn Things That Others Already
Know Note:
• In order to do this • I hear a lot of people say they
• You must be able to access the learned about an issue by “doing
information research on the internet or
• You must be able to understand Youtube”.
the material
• You must be able to determine the
accuracy and reliability of that
information
As a researcher, teacher, and citizen of the
world I am always learning new things.
• The purpose of this presentation
is to give you a brief introduction
to the process that I use when I
try to learn new things.
• Although I will guide you
through the learning process for
most of the topics in this course,
you will be required to learn
some things on your own
• This will be a useful life-long skill
Where Can I Find Information When I Want
to Learn New Things?

Take a class
Consult an expert
Ask my neighbors

The media Library

Here is Where We Will Often Start!

• There is a lot of valuable and

reliable information on the
internet
• The problem is that there is so
much information and it can be
difficult to evaluate the quality
of the information can be
variable
 Who Writes the Information on the Internet?

45 year old guy still living with his Mom?

Wise, intelligent, informed, unbiased experts?

12 year old girl who loves K-Pop? This guy? Corrupt, evil businessmen?
Too Much Information!!!
• Search for • You can’t read all of this, and if
• “Lingnan University” you could, not all of it would be
• 716,000 results appropriate, useful, or reliable.
• “Hong Kong environment”
• 188,000,000 results
• “pollution” • How can you most efficiently
• 202,000,000 results and effectively locate good
information on the internet?
 Conducting “Research” on the Internet
• There is lots of great (and some
not so great) information on the
internet, so the challenge is to
be able to evaluate the quality of
the information that you find
online.
• Here I will take you through the
process that I use when I try to
find information on a new topic
topic.
Let’s imagine that I want to know more about
the “ozone hole”
• I use Google Search.
• I have found Google search to be the most effective search engine, but you can use your
preferred search engine
• It is possible that different search engines might find different information, so it might be
wise to try more than one

• I would start by simply typing “ozone hole” into the google search engine,
pushing the button, and examining what pops up

• You should try this as you work through this exercise!

How I Use Google Search Returns
• The first entry will often be from Wikipedia.
• In my experience Wikipedia articles can be written by careful professionals
and provide very good information, but they may be written by people with
an agenda or by irresponsible people who are trying to cover up or confuse
the issue.
• Wikipedia tries to monitor this, but still problems exist. Thus, I always approach
Wikipedia with caution.

• However, I often find Wikipedia to be a good first place to start

• But I do not necessarily trust everything that I read there or consider that articles are
complete and contain all necessary information.
Wikipedia “Ozone Depletion”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
(please click and take a look at this article)

What I noticed-
- the article is long, technical, and contains graphs and figures
“This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help
improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the
technical details.”  (Wikipedia added this statement at the top of the article)

- The article contains references and suggestions for further

reading
- Thus, if I am unsure of what the article says, or I want to know
more, then I can look it up in the original source
- The article contains a table of contents
- This organization might help me understand concept
Wikipedia “Ozone Depletion”
• Without reading a single word, my impression is that “this might be a
useful article” so I would take look at it more carefully.
• The information in the article might not be useful but could lead me to think
about new things and direct me to new sources of information.
Back to “Ozone Hole” Search: Other Top Returns Come
From NASA
• NASA- National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
• https://www.nasa.gov/
• Branch of the USA Federal
Government who are responsible
for space exploration
• These are the people who landed on
the moon so they might have some
knowledge about what is happening
in the atmosphere!!
Evaluating Government Websites
• I have scientist friends in US and I know scientists in Hong Kong who work for the
government.
• There are lots of good scientists working for governments around the world trying to provide
governments and the general public with the best available information so that we can make
wise decisions
• In general, I trust the information on government websites, but always the chance for
politics to complicate things!!
• Note: I recognize that the US administration, led by President Trump, may have had a pro-business, anti-
environment, anti-science agenda and may be putting pressure on governmental agencies. The scientists
in US are tried to fight back to limit this problem. I am more confident of info from government websites
now that President Biden has taken over.
• I find this to be an embarrassing, but sad reality!!
• In general I have found the government scientists I have met with in Hong Kong and the
environmental information on HK government websites to be reliable and useful.
• It is possible that science and politics can become intertwined in Hong Kong.
 Government Websites
• Can provide useful information on a number of environmental and
health-related issues.
• Because I am from the USA, I am most aware of American sources
such as
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (https://www.epa.gov/)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) (https://www.nih.gov/)
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (
http://www.noaa.gov/)

• There is good information available from governmental websites

around the world
• To locate governmental websites from other countries, e.g., Hong Kong, just
google “hong kong environment.gov” (or replace Hong Kong with the name of
the desired country)
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
• NGOs can be a great source of reliable information
• But NGOs can vary greatly in quality and reliability of the information
• NGOs often have a mission (e.g., to protect the environment of Hong Kong) so
they might have an agenda.
• I think that it is OK for an organization to have a mission (I am a supporter of a number of
conservation organizations), but I do not think that it is OK for organizations to make up,
misrepresent, or omit factual information
• When looking at NGO websites it is important to understand their mission and to make sure
that you know when they are stating facts or stating opinions.
• Also need to be sure that they are stating facts correctly
The Union of Concerned Scientists
• https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/scienc
e/ozone-hole-and-gw-faq.html#.W3D-ee6FOUl

• A group of scientists who advocate “Science for a healthy planet and

safer world”
• In general, I find this group to be reliable
• Scientists will rely on the best current information
• Otherwise would be ridiculed by other scientists and lose their reputation
• But still would look our for “anti-business” bias.
Newspapers and Other media Outputs
• In this era of claims of “fake news” and “alternative facts” it can be
difficult to determine the reliability of media outlets

• It is always a good idea to click on the “news” tab on the top of the
google return page to see if there are any useful, recent articles on
your topic.
Videos
• Make sure that you also click the “video” tab on the top of the Google
return page to see if there are any useful videos.

• I would evaluate the reliability of these videos in the same way that I
evaluated other web pages and websites.
Images
• Make sure that you also click the “images” tab on the top of the
Google return page to see if there are any useful photos, figures, or
graphs.
• Visuals may make it easier for you, or more importantly, your potential
audience to understand complicated topics.
• Clicking on these images can often take you to useful sources of information
Environmental NGOs and Universities

• WWF
• IUCN
• Greenpeace
• Conservation International
• Jane Goodall Institute
• Hong Kong
• https://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/links/local/link_greengroups.html

• Can also find good information from many university websites

Free, Online Environmental Science
Textbooks
• The Habitable Planet: A Systems • Online Environmental Science
Approach to Environmental Textbooks can also be a good
Science place to start to learn about new
• https://www.learner.org/courses/ topics.
envsci/
• Fundamentals of Physical
Geography • Here are a couple you might
• http://www.physicalgeography.net check out.
/fundamentals/contents.html

These references might be useful in your future studies in this course!!

Difference Between Primary and Secondary
Sources:
Primary Sources Secondary Sources
• A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence
about an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary
• Secondary sources describe, discuss,
sources include historical and legal documents, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate,
eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical summarize, and process primary sources.
data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video
recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, • Secondary source materials can be articles in
surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via newspapers or popular magazines, book or
email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also movie reviews, internet websites, or articles
primary sources. found in scholarly journals that discuss or
• In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are evaluate someone else's original research.
often empirical studies—research where an • https://library.ithaca.edu/sp/subjects/primary
experiment was performed or a direct observation was
made. The results of empirical studies are typically
found in scholarly articles or papers delivered at
conferences. You will mostly use secondary sources.
Primary and Secondary Sources
• In science, the primary literature is • Secondary sources can be
written by expert scientists with the extremely important because
intention of informing other experts
about new discoveries at the cutting edge they are written by experts who
of the field. can make the information
• Thus, information in the primary literature accessible to non-experts.
may be difficult for non-experts to
understand.
• Even though I have a Ph.D in science
(ecology) some of the information in
chemistry-related primary literature related
to the Ozone hole would be difficult for me
to understand.
• Thus, I have to focus on the big picture and not
the small details
Additional Resources: How to Evaluate
Websites
• How to evaluate website
content. The University of
Edinburgh
• https://www.ed.ac.uk/information
-services/library-museum-gallery/
finding-resources/library-database
s/databases-overview/evaluating-
websites
Finding and evaluating
information on the internet.
Advocates for Youth
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/pub
lications/publications-a-z/490-finding-a
nd-evaluating-information-on-the-intern
et
Final Thoughts
• Learning to locate and evaluate the
quality of new information is one of
the most important skills you can
learn
• Core of Life Long Learning
• You will need to use this skill
• In this course (in your research project)
• During your time at Lingnan
• In the future
• When you want to learn about proper
medical treatment for your children or you
are concerned about harmful pollution
from a new business that locates nearby.
• You will get better at this over
time, so practice, practice, practice
• It should be fun to learn new things
• Remember, you should have
“devouring curiosity” to understand
the world
• Please ask me if you have
difficulties of questions with this
process.