Police brutality/profiling - How could their training be different?

For Sunday, 7/16, I want you to turn in an annotated bibliography for your final essay. I'll post the prompt for the final essay right after this one. You're required to find four credible sources for the essay, at least one of which needs to be a scholarly source (more on that below). For the annotated bibliography, I want you to list each source as you would on a works cited page. Beneath each annotation, write two paragraphs: one that summarizes the source, and one that discusses how you'll use it in your paper. Here's an example entry for an annotated bibliography:

Hunt, David. “The Face of the Wolf Is Blessed, or Is It? Diverging Perceptions of the Wolf.”

          Folklore, vol. 119, no. 3, 2008, pp. 319–334. JSTOR. www.jstor.org/stable/40646471.

In this article, Hunt examines how different cultures have mythologized the wolf. He looks at ancient tales and different turns of phrase involving the wolf, concluding that European and Christian cultures have historically seen the wolf as evil and bloodthirsty. By contrast, some populations in Asia view the wolf as being loyal, independent, and heroic. Hunt then discusses how none of those myths accurately depict the animal.

My essay will focus on how ancient myths of the wolf have carried over into the present, and specifically how those myths live on in the state of Wyoming. Hunt’s essay will help me trace where those myths began, giving me insight into how those myths transformed into the idea that wolves kill for fun, which many people still believe. I’ll also use his work to highlight the other side of wolf mythologizing and how some people see the animal as a symbol for the lost West.

Again, you'll need to do that for each of your four sources. 

Next, I want to talk more about source credibility and how to find reliable sources. One of the best information resources you have access to as a student are the library's databases. On those databases, you can find everything from scholarly articles to magazine articles that aren't otherwise published online. A scholarly article is a piece of writing done by experts in the field - usually professors in that area or university-employed researchers. In order to get published in an academic journal, those articles go through a rigorous process of peer review: other experts go over the article, looking for anything that needs to be fixed, clarified, changed, or improved. The writer(s) then revise the article so it's as accurate and clear as possible. Scholarly articles are generally the most credible sources you can find. Having said that, scholarly articles can be difficult to read because they typically use a lot of academic terms. When looking for a scholarly article for your essay, I recommend first reading the abstract to decide if it's something that will actually pertain to your paper. If it seems like you'd want to use it after reading the abstract, read the rest of it. Take your time and try not to get frustrated. Just know in advance that you'll most likely have to spend a bit more time looking up different definitions and things of that nature when reading these sources.

Instead of walking you through how to use the databases in a written lecture, I'll teach you how to do it in this YouTube video. Please watch the entire thing and pay close attention. (I apologize for my cat meowing a couple times throughout.) You can use the databases throughout your college career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6yuYz9K8Yo

As far as evaluating source credibility on Google or other search engines, make sure to go through the guidelines in the previous article from George Mason University that I assigned. Here's a link to it in case you missed it: https://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

When searching for sources, always make sure to look at the writer's authority and past experience. Also pay close attention to the purpose of the site and author. Avoid articles that try to sell you something, have factual errors, or are just trying to convince you to believe one side of an argument without looking at other perspectives. Instead, look for sources that evaluate multiple angles of an argument, even as they try to put forth one particular stance. Here's a list of sites that do this particularly well: JSTOR Daily, New York Times, Harper's, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. Other sites that often have good content but also have material that don't always look at multiple perspectives: Vice and Slate. All of those organizations operate on the principal to put out reliable information and arguments, so I recommend looking at them as you do your research.

Lastly, for Wednesday, July 12, read pgs. 68-101 in They Say, I Say and answer my discussion questions. I also want you to take this very short fake news quiz from Factitious and answer a question about the result. You'll need to create a profile with your email address in order to take it. http://factitious.augamestudio.com/#/

It's not a quiz you'll be graded on, so don't stress about it. You just need to answer a discussion question afterward. This is a lot to take in, so please don't hesitate to ask me any questions you might have. As a reminder, I have office hours in rm. 2455 on campus on Tuesdays, from 2 to 3:30 pm. Feel free to come talk in person.