§ Find the major claims in the text.

§ Determine the type of evidence and examples used to support each claim: experiments, statistics, surveys, personal experience, general beliefs, individual cases, psychological, historical, philosophical, moral, etc.

§ Look for assumptions in the text that have weak reasoning or do not have

supportive evidence.

§ Identify concepts that are not defined or that provoke disagreements.

§ Seek what is valued or the criteria used for determining what is fair, good, or useful.

§ Check to see if the reasoning is causal, conditional, comparative, logical,

emotional, etc.

§ Consider exceptions or factors that are not discussed or left out.

§ Search for bias in text such as political, religious, racial, class, gender, sexuality, age, etc. Remember that some would say that we are all biased in some way by our values.

§ Examine the tone and type of the language used to persuade the reader.

§ Decide whether the context for the topic at the time was controversial,

over-looked, innovative, popular, etc.

Dr. Nancy Mack Multigenre Research Projects: Multifaceted, Multipurpose Writing Assignments

Teachers College Press  

Evaluating a

Text for

Credibility