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MS Fact VS. Opinion : Home

FACT or OPINION?

Introduction

When reading news ask yourself the following questions:

1. Where is the information coming from?

2. What is the intent or purpose of publishing this information?

3. Is the purpose to inform, or is it to persuade and offer an opinion? 

The EJN director, Aidan White, describes the five values which are the foundation of ethical journalism as: accuracy; independence; impartiality; humanity; and accountability.

 

What if the difference between NEWS and OPINION articles?

1. NEWS article offer an accurate, impartial account of events and the purpose is to inform the reader. 

2. OPINION articles are labeled as such in major publications, and often written by one individual or columnist. The purpose of an opinion article is to persuade the reader about an issue offering facts and a point of view. Sometimes people are invited to write opinion pieces on a certain topic, and sometimes the opinion article is written by a regular columnist.

3. An Op-ED (in print on the opposite side of the editorial page) is opposite the editorial page of the paper, and is a place to find opinion articles.  Notice there are different kinds of opinion articles.  

3. An EDITORIAL is a newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers of the publication, so it is the opinion of a group of people representing the publication.  Editorials are a type of OPINION article. 

 

SIRS DISCOVERER

SIRS Discoverer Database 

Tutorial Video: How to Use Sirs Discoverer Database

USERNAME: pdslibs PASSWORD  gooddata

Notes and Bibliographies

Cornell Note taking Sheet to Take Notes:

1.Use the Cornell Notes sheet made for this project

2.Circle whether you believe the source is an opinion article or a factual news source.

3. Assign a source number to each source you use, so you can easily know where the information came from 

3. Put information in bulleted form so as not to copy

 

 

To Keep Track of Sources

  • Open a  Google Doc and call it bibliography

  • Copy and Paste the source (Click on Cite) information to the document.

  • USE mybib.com to create citations if you cannot get a citation ready to copy. (Many web sites and newspapers will not have the citation ready to copy)

  • Number each source as you add them to your google doc so you know what source it is.

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