{"id":195,"date":"2025-02-12T22:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T22:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/chapter\/reliable-sources\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T15:31:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:31:37","slug":"reliable-sources","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/chapter\/reliable-sources\/","title":{"raw":"Reliable Sources","rendered":"Reliable Sources"},"content":{"raw":"The Internet has plenty of places to find information, but not all are created equal.\n\nYou can ask a parent or teacher, do a search, or check Wikipedia to find out if something is a trusted, expert source.\n\nHere are three questions to ask:\n\n1. Do they know about the topic?\n<ul>\n \t<li>An expert source is a person or group with special knowledge on a topic. Doctors and scientists are expert sources. So are museums and science magazines.<\/li>\n \t<li>People can be experts in things they have done or laces they have lived.<\/li>\n \t<li>You are an expert on your life and yourself.<\/li>\n \t<li>A vet would be an expert on dogs, but you might be an expert on <em>your<\/em> dog.<\/li>\n \t<li>Being an expert in one thing doesn\u2019t make you an expert in everything! You wouldn\u2019t ask a dentist to fix a broken arm. Make sure they know what they\u2019re talking about.\n<ul>\n \t<li>Write down some examples of different topics and who you would ask about them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n&nbsp;\n\n2.\u00a0 Do they have a process for getting good facts?\n\nA trusted source has ways to make sure they get facts right.\n<ul>\n \t<li>Scientists do experiments.<\/li>\n \t<li>Reporters ask questions.<\/li>\n \t<li>People who write books talk to experts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThey also make sure to correct any mistakes they make.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n3. Do they have a reason to give you good facts?\n<ul>\n \t<li>Trusted sources also have reasons to make sure their facts are right:\n<ul>\n \t<li>If someone wants you to come to their house, they have a reason to give you accurate directions.<\/li>\n \t<li>If a scientist makes mistakes, other scientists will do experiments that correct them.<\/li>\n \t<li>If a book about dogs has lots of mistakes, people won\u2019t want to buy it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n&nbsp;\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--examples\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<p class=\"textbox__title\"><strong>For instance, news outlets have three different ways of appealing to audiences:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n\nThey can be fun and entertaining\n\nThey be accurate and give you lots of facts so that you feel well-informed, and\n\nThey can make you root for your side\u2014whether that\u2019s a sports team, your country, who you are, and so on.\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTake a look at these newspaper slogans.\n\n[h5p id=\"87\"]\n\nNot all news sources are as open about what they are selling, but you can usually tell by asking yourself: Would they lose money if people thought they weren\u2019t accurate?","rendered":"<p>The Internet has plenty of places to find information, but not all are created equal.<\/p>\n<p>You can ask a parent or teacher, do a search, or check Wikipedia to find out if something is a trusted, expert source.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three questions to ask:<\/p>\n<p>1. Do they know about the topic?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An expert source is a person or group with special knowledge on a topic. Doctors and scientists are expert sources. So are museums and science magazines.<\/li>\n<li>People can be experts in things they have done or laces they have lived.<\/li>\n<li>You are an expert on your life and yourself.<\/li>\n<li>A vet would be an expert on dogs, but you might be an expert on <em>your<\/em> dog.<\/li>\n<li>Being an expert in one thing doesn\u2019t make you an expert in everything! You wouldn\u2019t ask a dentist to fix a broken arm. Make sure they know what they\u2019re talking about.\n<ul>\n<li>Write down some examples of different topics and who you would ask about them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0 Do they have a process for getting good facts?<\/p>\n<p>A trusted source has ways to make sure they get facts right.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Scientists do experiments.<\/li>\n<li>Reporters ask questions.<\/li>\n<li>People who write books talk to experts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They also make sure to correct any mistakes they make.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>3. Do they have a reason to give you good facts?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Trusted sources also have reasons to make sure their facts are right:\n<ul>\n<li>If someone wants you to come to their house, they have a reason to give you accurate directions.<\/li>\n<li>If a scientist makes mistakes, other scientists will do experiments that correct them.<\/li>\n<li>If a book about dogs has lots of mistakes, people won\u2019t want to buy it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--examples\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<p class=\"textbox__title\"><strong>For instance, news outlets have three different ways of appealing to audiences:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<p>They can be fun and entertaining<\/p>\n<p>They be accurate and give you lots of facts so that you feel well-informed, and<\/p>\n<p>They can make you root for your side\u2014whether that\u2019s a sports team, your country, who you are, and so on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Take a look at these newspaper slogans.<\/p>\n<div id=\"h5p-87\">\n<div class=\"h5p-iframe-wrapper\"><iframe id=\"h5p-iframe-87\" class=\"h5p-iframe\" data-content-id=\"87\" style=\"height:1px\" src=\"about:blank\" frameBorder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"What Sells the News?\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Not all news sources are as open about what they are selling, but you can usually tell by asking yourself: Would they lose money if people thought they weren\u2019t accurate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-195","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":190,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/revisions\/397"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/190"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringwrdsb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}