Part of a set of university teaching materials called "Encouraging Critical Thinking Online" by Meriel Patrick of Oxford University, made openly available for adaptation and re-use in the Intute Virtual Training Suite <http: />

1. Encouraging Critical
Thinking Online
Unit 1
Checking Facts and
Gathering Opinions

2. On what date did World
War II start?
• Find three websites that provide an
answer
• Fill in the boxes on the worksheet
for each of them
• Comment on any notable features
of the sites or answers you discover

3. On what date did World
War II start?
• The answer depends on how one
interprets the question
– What constitutes the true beginning of
a war?
– Whose perspective are we considering
events from?

4. On what date did World
War II start?
• Popular answers include 1
September 1939, when Germany
invaded Poland, and 3 September
1939, when Britain and France
declared war on Germany

5. On what date did World
War II start?
• However, there are arguments for
both earlier and later dates
– Hostilities in Asia began earlier in the
1930s
– Some argue it wasn’t a true world war
until the USA became involved in 1941

6. Extract from U-S-History.com
Extract from Wikipedia article on
World War II
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1661.html and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Chronology Retrieved 7 August 2008

7. Wikipedia article notes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#References Retrieved 7 August
2008

8. Wikipedia article notes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#References Retrieved 7 August
2008

9. On what date did World
War II start?
• Searches for phrases like “
World War II start date” or “
When did World War II start?” bring
up a range of results
– Question and answer sites
– Essays and overviews

10. Results of Google search for “When did
World War II start?”
http://www.google.co.uk/ Retrieved 7 August 2008

11. A Yahoo! Answers page
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060620173709AA7G8pe Retrieved 5 June 2008

12. On what date did World
War II start?
• However, notice that a search like this
produces a high proportion of non-
scholarly results
• Q&A sites give a range of answers – but
some of those answers are wrong!
– See, for example, this WikiAnswers page
• A lot of sifting and evaluation is required

13. WikiAnswers: the second hit for the
Google search “World War II start date”
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_exact_time_and_date_did_world_war_2_start Retrieved 4 June 2008

14. WikiAnswers: the second hit for the
Google search “World War II start date”
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_exact_time_and_date_did_world_war_2_start Retrieved 4 June 2008

15. On what date did World
War II start?
• Because there’s no clear single
answer, more scholarly sites may
not specify a start date
– Therefore they may not show up in a
search using this phrase
• Careful choice of search terms is
vital

16. On what date did World
War II start?
• Searching for a phrase like “
World War II timeline” produces a
rather different set of results
– More sites devoted to history
– More sites intended for academic use
– But not all sites are equal – there’s still
a need for careful selection

17. Results of Google search for
“World War II timeline”
http://www.google.co.uk/ Retrieved 7 August 2008

18. Extract from BBC History website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/ww2_summary_01.shtml Retrieved 7 August 2008

19. Summary - key things to note
• Sometimes it’s necessary to
discover part of the answer to
enable effective searching for the
rest
• The nature of some sites may make
them more prone to error

20. Why might we find conflicting
answers to a question?
• There may be real uncertainty
about the answer
• Authorities may disagree
• There may be multiple ways of
interpreting a question

21. Why might we find conflicting
answers to a question?
• Some sources may be more up to
date than others
• Answers may vary in precision
• Some sources may simply be
wrong

22. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Who is the author?
– An individual or an institution?
– What are the author’s credentials?
• Is this a scholarly resource, or a
more informal one?
• How up to date is this source?

23. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Are there reasons to doubt the
reliability of this source?
– Does it include information I know to
be false?
– Does it contradict itself or use poor
reasoning?
– Is it biased towards a particular view?

24. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Is the information provided
confirmed by other sources?
– Are references provided?
– Do other websites agree? (A major
advantage of the Web is that many
sources can be compared quickly and
easily.)

25. Remember the three Ws
• WHO wrote this site?
– Is the author a trustworthy source?
• WHEN was it written?
– Is it up to date?
• WHY was it written?
– Does the author have an axe to grind?

26. This slideshow is part of
Encouraging Critical Thinking Online,
a set of free teaching resources
designed to develop
students’ analytic abilities,
using the Web as source material.
For the full set, please visit
Intute Training:
http://www.intute.ac.uk/training/