HSI100

3 cardinal sins of research

• Falsification
  • Changing the data
• Fabrication
  • Creating new data
• Plagarism

Why are citations important

• Establish paper trail
  • Allows reader to verify evidence
• Gives credit
  • So that we know the writer is not stealing

Types of sources

• Primary source
  • The original observations
• Secondary source
  • Something based on a primary source
• Tertiary source
  • Something based on a secondary source

BDTK

Before applying

• Guard your buttons

  • button: something that triggers strong emotions (greed, anger, guilt etc.)
  • will cause your emotions to override the facts

• Biases

  • Availability bias - tendency to make decisions based on information that is readily available to you
  • Confirmation bias - interpreting the same thing differently based on prior views
  • Illusory truth bias - hearing the same information many times, you often come to think its true

• What do other sources say about the source and its claims?

  • 4. Where does most of the evidence point?
  • 5. Have the claims been verified by someone else?
    • At least one other person says the same thing

• Who is behind the information and why?

  • 1. How reliable is the source of this claim
    • Is the claimant an authority in the field
    • Do they have the relevant expertise
  • 2. What is the source’s perspective
    • Political leaning
    • Source of funding
    • Ulterior motive

• What is the evidence behind the claims?

  • 3. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
    • Hard data provided: videos, screenshots, scientific papers
  • 6. Does the claimant use flawed reasoning?
    • Breaks in the flow of logic
    • Logical fallacies

Definitions

• Source: Where the current article we are evaluating comes from
• Claims: The article’s point
• Evidence: What the article uses to support their claim

Confidence Level to StdDev

Confidence Level	StdDev
80%	1.282
90%	1.645
95%	1.960
99%	2.576
99.9%	3.291
68%	1
95%	2
99.7%	3