Foreign Policy – Source Evaluation

 

Name _____________________________________ Date ________ Period________

 

Finding and using sources to answer a question

 

Key Vocabulary:

·        Source: The news article, book, website, or other place from which you get information.

·        Appropriate: fitting or suitable for the purpose

·        Reputation: overall quality or character as  judged by people in general within a community

·        Current: up to date, within the last few months

·        Reliable: factual, believable, dependable

Questions:  What is the current foreign policy issue you want to explore?

 

What is the U.S. policy on that issue? Provide at least 2 facts.

 

Do you support the current U.S. policy on the issue?  If so, what specific aspects of the policy to you support?

 

Do you think the U.S. policy should change? If so, what, specifically, should change?

 

Find appropriate source(s):

List title:

 

List publisher:

 

Evaluate the quality of information from each source:

Does this source help you answer the questions? If not, move on to find another source.

 

 

Who is the author of this source?

 

 

What institutional support does the author have? (Government, Organization, News, Individual, University) Does this institution have a good reputation?

 

 

Does the author benefit from publishing this information?

 

 

Date published:  Is the information current enough to be useful?

(Sources should be no later than 3 months old but in some cases it must be within a few weeks old.  For sources that provide historical background, they can be within a few years old.)

 

 

 

OVERà

Is this a reliable source?  Should you use it? Why? (If you can’t answer YES to this question, don’t use this source.  Find another one.)

 

 

 

Do you have sufficient information to answer the questions?  If not find other sources to add to the information you have already found.

 

 

Properly cite the source using MLA citation guidelines

(see http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/wjhs/mediactr/citingonline2.html)

 

Author’s name:

 

Title of Article:

 

Title of Newspaper:

 

Date:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you’ve determined that this is a good source, fill in information on the graphic organizer: U.S. Foreign Policy: Preparing to Write a Letter to an Elected Official.

Note: idea and some of the language taken from Mueller, J. (2005, April/May). Authentic assessment in the classroom...and the library media center. Library Media Connection, 23(7), 14.