Week 4: Crap Detection 101, Plus a Rough Draft Critique Session

We’re halfway through our Video Narrative unit, so your projects should be starting to take shape. I’ll be looking over the drafts you uploaded to Google Drive this weekend, so watch for an email from me containing some feedback on your script.

Next week, we will work on pulling together all of your various artifacts into a coherent narrative. Here’s how we’ll spend our time in class each day:

On Monday, we will discuss Howard Rheingold’s concept of “crap detection.” Before you come to class, please read Chapter 2 (pages 77–109) in Net Smart and explore the Hypothes.is website. (Be sure to watch the introductory video on the “What Is It?” page.) Sometime before Sunday night, leave a comment on this post about a specific passage from Net Smart that you want to discuss in class. (Even better: use your comment to extend or refute one of your classmate’s ideas.) In addition, please come to class with a “shopping list” for your video narrative that includes every image, video clip, audio clip, etc., that you think you need to complete your project. (Be as detailed as possible!) We will spend part of class helping you determine when you should create these items yourself and when you should rely on public domain or Creative Commons materials.
Wednesday’s entire class will be devoted to a peer critique workshop designed to help you finalize your script and begin arranging the various components within your video. Before you come to class, you need to (a) revise your original script and ensure that it falls within the 3–5 minute time limit, (b) create and/or gather all raw materials (video clips, audio clips, and still images) for your video, and (c) select which software program you will use to create the final version of your video. Depending on which software program you choose, you may need to bring your laptop to class on Wednesday.

As always, if you have any questions about our plans for next week, drop me a line via email or Twitter.

9 Responses to "Week 4: Crap Detection 101, Plus a Rough Draft Critique Session"

Brittany says:

February 9, 2013 at 2:53 pm

“A study in 2010 by Eszter Hargittai, Lindsay Fullerton, Erika Menchen-Trevino, and Kristin Yate Thomas, found that students use search engines as a parameter of trustworthiness. As long as a site is toward the top of a search engine’s listings, many of this study’s subjects considered it credible (81).”
I am guilty of this. I will type something in to Google just to see what it’s about and I’ll read the little blurb under the first three or four links and if they all seem to be saying the same thing I’ll click one of the first two links to read more. I rarely click to go to the second page of website suggestions. I’m not saying I believe any of these top sites to be research paper worthy, but for answers to everyday questions I believe these top sites to be credible.
Jonathan says:

February 9, 2013 at 5:42 pm

Within the contexts of the chapter he mentions three principles from Gillmor that amount to “core principles for turning mere consumption into active learning. The first principle, ‘Be Skeptical,’ is in line with what I’ve written here so far. The second one, ‘Exercise Judgement,’ cautions against reverting to cynicism in response to the unreliability of online information (…). Principle number three, ‘Open Your Mind,’ is an encouragement to seek out legitimate sources that disagree with your own beliefs” (Rheingold, 95).

I believe these are relatively sound principles for our interactions online as well as in our daily lives. Skepticism allows us to question those means of information that we encounter on a daily basis, but this should not lead us toward outright cynicism of the internet as a reliable source of information. The information that we find online should be taken with a grain of salt, rather than at face value. The method which Rheingold details early on in the chapter of triangulating reliable data sources can help us to sift through the muck online; after we’ve uncovered a reliable source, then we ought to find something which provides us with a different take of the situation, examine both arguments’ perspectives for their individual truths, and discern for ourselves what to think of the situation as a whole.
Catherine says:

February 10, 2013 at 2:24 pm

From page 78: “Take the Web site’s design into account, but don’t count on it. Professional design should not be seen as a certain indicator of accurate content (Genochoice and Hetracil are beautifully designed), yet visibly amateurish design is sometimes a signal that the ‘Institute of Such-and-Such’ might be a lone crackpot.”

This passage stuck out to me because the design of a website is something I always pay attention to when doing research or just surfing the web. I am guilty of thinking a site is legitimate solely on its design, and also of not taking a site seriously because they used comic sans and clip art pictures.
David says:

February 10, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Pg 79. Take the Web site’s design into account, but don’t count on it. Professional design should not be seen as a certain indicator of accurate content (Genochoice and Hetracil are beautifully designed), yet visibly amateurish design is sometimes a signal that the “Institute of Such-and-Such” might be a lone crackpot. Treat a site’s design not as validation of credibility but instead as one possible clue (along with grammatical errors, suspicious sources or lack thereof, and other people’s negative opinions of the site) that could convince you to lower your evaluation of the site’s credibility.

Rheingold, Howard; Weeks, Anthony (2012-02-24). Net Smart (p. 79). MIT Press. Kindle Edition.

Rheingold discusses how site design can help you with your ‘crap-detection’ of a specific site. I have a problem with this to a certain extent because I have found many ‘amateur-designed’ sites to have not only accurate information, but good information. However, Rheingold warns against judging a site by its design, but I feel that most of us do when browsing the web. We may be scared of getting spyware type viruses from under-designed sites, but nowadays we should be cautious and skeptical of all sites we visit whether it looks professional or not.
Jordan says:

February 10, 2013 at 8:41 pm

“Most people ask themselves whether a detective inquiry to verify the answer to a Web search is worth the time. According to researchers Soo Young Rieh and Brian Hilligoss, interviews with twenty-four college students revealed that they would be willing to compromise certainty about credibility for speed and convenience. That trade-off is familiar to older Web users as well” (On my computer it does not say what page, put it is at 23% in the book).

I find this interesting. We discussed how this book is slightly dated, and I was curious if this same study was taken from students today, would they come up with the same results? I feel like todays students are so wrapped into the here and now and feel as if we have earned the right to have answers immediately and we are almost a demanding generation. I think that most would say that for an assignment they would rather go for the quick and easy path rather then looking deep into the facts to find out if they are legit or not.
Beth says:

February 10, 2013 at 9:59 pm

“Promote the notion that more info literacy is a practical answer to the growing info pollution. Be the change you want to see.” (89)

Whenever I see a suspiciously worded claim about “the new way robbers are getting into your car”, or “the new way ~gangs~ are going to assault you on the side of the road”, I immediately google key words from the email/post and then ‘snopes’ after it. I know Snopes is a reliable source – it checks its sources. So whenever I see somebody forward me an email like that, or I see one of my friends post about it on their blogs, I send them a heads up that their ‘warning’ was fake, and direct them to the appropriate link.

I’d like to think I’m helping promote fact-checking on chain mails.
Sangji says:

February 10, 2013 at 10:38 pm

I also wanted to discuss the quote “Professional design should not be seen as a certain indicator of accurate content” (98). I think this is a subconscious habit that we all have developed, because throughout our entire lives we have been trained to “judge a book by its cover”. I thought it was interesting that Rheingold took this position; I would have expected most scholars to encourage us to evaluate the credibility of a source, especially a site, based on its professional appearance.
Becca says:

February 11, 2013 at 12:24 am

Pg 79. Take the Web site’s design into account, but don’t count on it. Professional design should not be seen as a certain indicator of accurate content (Genochoice and Hetracil are beautifully designed), yet visibly amateurish design is sometimes a signal that the “Institute of Such-and-Such” might be a lone crackpot. Treat a site’s design not as validation of credibility but instead as one possible clue (along with grammatical errors, suspicious sources or lack thereof, and other people’s negative opinions of the site) that could convince you to lower your evaluation of the site’s credibility.

Going off of David’s opinion of Rheingold’s website design theory, I particularly pay attention to spelling and grammar mistakes during crap detection. I understand that not everyone has design experience or talent and that some people just want to share their knowledge, thus creating a web page that lacks professional layouts. What I detect as crap most of the time is type that contains multiple grammar or spelling errors. When I read a piece with three or more grammatical or spelling errors I begin to question the author’s capabilities. Did he or she not take the time to edit, which could then mean that they did not take the time to double check the facts too? Or does he or she not know the correct grammar or spelling, which may indicate their lack of knowledge on the subject in the first place? Either way I take the type into much more consideration than the design when it comes to crap detection because it is more closely tied to the author’s knowledge.
Curtis Stanford says:

February 11, 2013 at 2:09 pm

In regards to the section on how to be an effective ‘googler,’ I wanted to suggest a way that I think is even more efficient. The reading insists that “writing the answer you want to get” is the quickest and most accurate way to find information, i.e. “Tesla lost to Edison because…” (sans the ellipses). While this certainly will bring up resources related to the query, it still requires the user to dig through the various links in search of what is credible and accurate.

What I’ve discovered is that, for basic information at least, I’m almost never the first person to inquire upon a subject. There are thousands (if not millions) of forums out there for people to post a question and allow other users and moderators to do the work for them and deliver the answers (and for whatever reason, people seem to have the time and patience to wait for these answers). Google loves to serve up these forums. So instead of “writing the answer,” I write the question, with the firm belief that someone else will have already asked the same question, and yet another user will have already dug through the garbage and have answered that question. It’s like using the entire internet community as your personal private investigators.

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