Hi all,

Here is my general feedback for your posts from March 28th. For these posts, I asked you to begin looking for sources and creating citations for those sources. Overall, I am seeing four things that many of you need to work on as you move forward with the research for, and writing of, the Op-Ed

1. Many of you need to format your citations to look the way they will on your works cited page. You might look at Nigel’s post for how these citations should look:   https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/garciaeng1121-hd18spring2022/2022/03/27/research-prep/

Also notice that he adds a quick note summary for each source. While these will not be part of his works cited page, it is great strategy for when he comes back to his research. 

2. Some of you still need to go further in narrowing down your focus for the Op-Ed. 

For example, Sonia writes that her topic is, “What is mental health stigma and how does it affect people?” But this question is still too broad. To narrow down, she might want to focus in on a particular mental health issue or condition and then bring awareness to the effects of that condition. She might even want to bring awareness to one or two effects. And, she should also think about her purpose and why she wants to bring awareness to whatever she chooses—having a purpose will give her argument a focus.

Similarly, Tameka, has Universal healthcare benefits as her topic, but this needs to narrowed down with a specific focus and question. Now that she has researched the various questions she had about her topic, she will need to focus in on one question that gives you a specific focus within her topic.

And one more example: Princess writes: The government provides a lot of resources for people with autism and there are many organizations and agencies that help with research to find causes or cures for autism. But, what is she saying about this? This is a fact.  What question and opinion does she have about these resources or agencies or some aspect of autism? 

Note that Sonia, Tameka, and Princess are not alone. Many of you need to look at these examples and also figure out how to narrow down your focus.

3. You should all take some time to make sure your sources are reputable. The library databases already filters sources for you. But if you are getting the information from the internet, then you need to do the following to investigate the credibility of your sources:

  • Google the publication and read about it (and not just on the publications site)
  • Look to see if there is an author and clear publication date
  • Look up the author’s background and find out what their job is, what else they have published, produced, etc., and making sure they are an expert in the field they are writing about
  • Look to see if the piece has citations

None of these things is enough to tell you if the piece is reputable. But together they will help you decipher the sources credibility.

And, a note on Wikipeida: There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia as a place to find out about a topic generally. And you can even look at their citations for things that might be helpful. But Wikipedia cannot be one of your sources.

4. Make sure your sources are not all of the same type or from the same place. Many of you need to look further and find more sources to make sure you have a variety in terms of types of sources and that they come from a variety of publications.