Transcript: Zoey
Chapter 6: Zoey talks about Lateral Reading+
In high school, I was under the impression that any source could be credible or relevant if you tweaked your research question or altered your search guidelines. I had no clue that there were methods that could make it much easier to assess sources on multiple different levels. As a sophomore in high school, I wrote a fifteen-page research paper on fears versus phobias. When analyzing potential sources, I would look for the year it was published and the authors. If the authors seemed somewhat credible and the resource was published within the 21st century, I would add it to my paper.
Currently, as a senior in college, I am writing a research paper on how sleep duration impacts emotional regulation in healthcare workers. I have utilized the skills described in Steps 2, 3, and 4 of the Lateral Reading+ guidelines to ensure my sources contain the most recent, accurate, and relevant information. Using Step 2, I believe it is crucial to use tools like Google to evaluate what others have to say about the publisher or authors of a certain source. From this strategy, I have recently discovered that certain publishers have motivations far from providing accurate information to the public.
Early on in college, I often had a difficult time determining what the audience of a certain source was meant to be. I would attempt to use scholarly sources that were meant for the experts of that discipline. Using Step 3 of the Lateral Reading+ guidelines, I can now quickly determine if a specific source was created for the public rather than members of a specific group or profession. The language used in the abstract of a journal article is one of the most efficient ways to make this distinction.
When evaluating an abstract for my current paper related to sleep and emotions, I look for an introduction or abstract of a journal article that starts with plain language describing what the authors are investigating. As I assess the authors of a journal article, when I see a Ph.D. or M.D. , I no longer automatically assume that they are the most qualified experts in a particular field. I put the skills described in Step 4 of the Lateral Reading+ guidelines into practice through investigating each author’s background, other work, and affiliations.
