It's worth discussing with your students what they find to be compelling evidence. Encourage them to include multiple types of evidence and not become reliant on any one form.
Try walking your students through an example, such as:
What evidence might you want to see in investigating why Walmart is or is not a socially responsible company?
or,
If you wanted to convince your parents to let you spend spring break in Cancun, how would you allay any fears they may have?
"Statistics borrow from mathematics an air of precision and certainty but also call on human judgment and so are subject to bias and imprecision." From Making Sense of Statistics
Familiarize yourself with the below resources if you would like to incorporate this discussion into your teaching.
Your students do not have a full understanding of scholarship - What counts as research? What do professors do when they are not teaching? Where do researchers work? How do I find their research? I'm being asked to pay for this research article - why? (p.s., never pay for articles - you already do - ask a librarian for help finding the article through our subscriptions)
Personal stories and experiences can be compelling as evidence and are found in newspapers and magazines. They may also come about as a result of your students interviewing subjects.
These databases are good places to search for personal stories typically found in magazines and newspapers.
Primary research: Peer-reviewed articles written by authors (scientists or researchers) who actually performed an original experiment or are reporting their field observations, i.e., of organisms or medical patients.
Scholarly Articles can be long and dense, but most scholarly articles have a structure. Once you understand the structure of the texts, they become easier to read and understand.
| Components | Key Points |
|---|---|
| Abstract |
|
| Introduction |
|
| Methods/ Methodology |
|
| Discussion |
|
| Conclusion |
|
| References |
|
Not all research papers are organized in such a manner, but all research papers provide these components whether they are labeled thus or not.
At about the 7 min mark, the video talks about a strategy for skimming.
Use this infographic from a scholarly publisher in the sciences. It walks you through approaching a scientific article - even if you aren't an expert.
If it is part of your teaching practice to talk about information ethics, information privilege, this infographic specific to UT may work for you:
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