Abstract
Given the rapid development and dissemination of various information types within CMC, source evaluation methodology is increasingly difficult and has been complicated further by dominant academic approaches. We trace the reification of book-based evaluation criteria and how its exalted status has been undergirded by a mentality that reinscribes old patterns of credibility onto wholly new entities such as the World Wide Web. Additionally, we trace the development and implementation of these book-based criteria from an influential article to their various incarnations in the MLA handbook, an examination that reveals how CMC has been ignored, then sequestered, and ultimately embraced, albeit lukewarmly. Finally, we will recommend using a rhetorical approach to source evaluation, which can be easily applied to assignments in the composition classroom.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Multiliteracies: A notion that contemporary literacy has changed because meaning is variable in different (and increasingly complex) social, cultural, and political contexts; also, meaning is increasingly produced using technologies that draw on multiple semiotic modes—on the Web, for example, visual and audio are used in increasingly diverse ways than just the written.
Writing Across the Curriculum: a pedagogical concept that emphasizes writing in all disciplines, not just in composition courses, and writing in everyday language as a way to process and synthesis information.
Book-Based Web Site Evaluation Criteria: Applying the means used in evaluating scholarly print sources directly to Web sites, for example, keying on the author’s reputation and credentials, place of publication, etc.
Capital(s): From French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the notion that there are various kinds of skills, reputations, practices, prestiges, and so forth, that may be directly converted into money, loosely configured into economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital.
First Phase Information Literacy: A means of grasping new literacies by making them conform to traditional literacy practices the user is more comfortable with.
Reification: The process of turning abstract, complex phenomena into a concrete formulation that can then be made transferable enough to serve as the “correct” way to view it instead of the complex, abstract, messiness indigenous to the item in question.
Writing Across the Curriculum: a pedagogical concept that emphasizes writing in all disciplines, not just in composition courses, and writing in everyday language as a way to process and synthesis information.
Reification: The process of turning abstract, complex phenomena into a concrete formulation that can then be made transferable enough to serve as the “correct” way to view it instead of the complex, abstract, messiness indigenous to the item in question.
Capital(s): From French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the notion that there are various kinds of skills, reputations, practices, prestiges, and so forth, that may be directly converted into money, loosely configured into economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital.
Making Do: From Michel de Certeau, the concept that when given a not-immediately-applicable challenge or assignment, people tend to do the minimum amount of work required of them, and in some cases cut corners or stray into ethical dilemmas when the chances of getting caught or punished is low.
Book-Based Web Site Evaluation Criteria: Applying the means used in evaluating scholarly print sources directly to Web sites, for example, keying on the author’s reputation and credentials, place of publication, etc.
Multiliteracies: A notion that contemporary literacy has changed because meaning is variable in different (and increasingly complex) social, cultural, and political contexts; also, meaning is increasingly produced using technologies that draw on multiple semiotic modes—on the Web, for example, visual and audio are used in increasingly diverse ways than just the written.
Making Do: From Michel de Certeau, the concept that when given a not-immediately-applicable challenge or assignment, people tend to do the minimum amount of work required of them, and in some cases cut corners or stray into ethical dilemmas when the chances of getting caught or punished is low.
Truth: From Michel Foucault, a manifestation of different power networks.
Second Phase Information Literacy: A means of grasping new literacies by acknowledging their uniqueness and learning from within and moving outward rather than grafting old systems of meaning unto them.
Truth: From Michel Foucault, a manifestation of different power networks.
iSkills Test: Offered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), this is a newly developed test to measure students’ cognitive and technical skills within information and communication technology.
Second Phase Information Literacy: A means of grasping new literacies by acknowledging their uniqueness and learning from within and moving outward rather than grafting old systems of meaning unto them.
iSkills Test: Offered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), this is a newly developed test to measure students’ cognitive and technical skills within information and communication technology.
First Phase Information Literacy: A means of grasping new literacies by making them conform to traditional literacy practices the user is more comfortable with.