Article Evaluation Assignment and Template

Article Evaluation Assignment and Template

This assignment will give you practice applying intellectual standards to evaluate an author's claims.

1. Readone of the assigned articles to use for this assignment.
2. Using the template below, for each of the nine (9) intellectual standards, provide an example from the article where the author met the standard, and an example from the article where the author failed to meet the standard.
1. For some standards, you may need or want to make an overall evaluation. For example, you may say that the topic meets the significance standard overall, because global warming is an important and pressing issue for humans to address now.
3. Explain why the standard is/is not met.  Make sure to provide evidence and examples from the article, and refer to the standards by name.
4. Refer the questions below to assist you in evaluating each standard.

Clarity – gateway standard

Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way? Could you give me an illustration? Could you give me an example? Clarity is the gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant. In fact, we cannot tell anything about it because we don't yet know what it is saying. For example, the question, "What can be done about the education system in America?" is unclear. In order to address the question adequately, we would need to have a clearer understanding of what the person asking the question is considering the "problem" to be. A clearer question might be "What can educators do to ensure that students learn the skills and abilities which help them function successfully on the job and in their daily decision-making?"

Accuracy

Is it true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is true? A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in "Fifty percent of dogs in the US are over 300 pounds in weight. Testable facts can be accurate - opinions cannot be tested for accuracy. Select a claim stated as a fact. It is sometimes difficult to find a simple falsehood. You can also identify an exaggeration of the truth and explain why the statement is false because it is an exaggeration of the truth.

Precision

Could you give more details? Could you be more specific?
A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in "Jack is overweight." (We don’t know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.)
Precise statements are specific and sometimes quantitative. For example, "a lot" is not precise, whereas, "40% of graduate students surveyed in May 2016" is precise.

Relevance

How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue?
A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue. For example, students often think that the amount of effort they put into a Assignment should be used in raising their grade in a Assignment. Often, however, the "effort" does not measure the quality of student learning; and when this is so, effort is irrelevant to their appropriate grade.

Depth (with Breadth, is a measure of completeness, sufficiency)

How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into account the problems in the question? A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack depth). For example, the statement, "Just say No!" which has been used to discourage children and teens from using drugs, is clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. Nevertheless, it lacks depth because it treats an extremely complex issue, the pervasive problem of drug use among young people, superficially. It fails to deal with the complexities of the issue.

Breadth (with Depth, is a measure of completeness, sufficiency)

Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this question? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this look like from the point of view of . . .? A line of reasoning may be clear accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth (as in an argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoint which gets deeply into an issue, but only recognizes the insights of one side of the question.)

Logic

Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow? But before you implied this, and now you are saying that; how can both be true? When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the thinking is "logical." When the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense or does not "make sense," the combination is not logical.

Fairness

Do I have a vested interest in this issue? Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of others? Human think is often biased in the direction of the thinker - in what are the perceived interests of the thinker. Humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others on the same plane with their own rights and needs. We therefore must actively work to make sure we are applying the intellectual standard of fairness to our thinking. Since we naturally see ourselves as fair even when we are unfair, this can be very difficult. A commitment to fairmindedness is a starting place.

Significance

Significance means having relative importance. Is this the most important problem to consider? Is this the central idea to focus on? Is this the most important information to consider?

Article evaluation template