find two quality articles on a topic of their choosing and examine both the context and the content of the articles. By completing this project, students have the chance to practice navigating arguments and truth claims within the context of the contemporary media.

To examine the context of the articles, students will determine author credibility and publisher credibility, and they will explain the broader context in which the articles were published. To examine the content of the articles, students will analyze the authors’ arguments, identify and evaluate the types reasoning the authors’ use, and explain what else they would need to know before being able to come to a conclusion on the matter.

Ideally, the articles student select for the project should be opinion essays containing an argument or a thesis, and the articles should be published in a reputable venue (broadly defined) in the popular press (not an academic journal and not on a blog or social media). Essentially, the article should have passed some sort of editorial process, meaning the person who wrote it and the editors who approved it are two different parties. For example, articles on Substack, while sometimes of high quality, would not count for this project because Substack is a platform for self-publishing. Instead, articles submitted by authors to newspapers and magazines are the kind of sources students should use for the project.

STEP 1: Find Appropriate Articles
The two articles you choose should be on the same topic, and the articles will ideally have been published in the last four to five years, so that they are relevant to contemporaneity issues. You are free to choose any topic you like. It is not necessary to choose one “for” and one “against” article. It is also not necessary to choose who articles that make arguments you disagree with. In fact, this may be a great opportunity to evaluate the quality of arguments that you generally agree with because it gives you an opportunity to reflect on your own beliefs as well. That said, the only requirement is that the articles be on the same topic and that they both make arguments.

Articles can come from a number of possible sources, including but not limited to:

Newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle
Magazines: The Atlantic, National Review, Jacobin, Reason, Wired
Broadcast Stations: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News
Cable News: CNN, MSNBC, Fox News
Ideally, the two articles you choose should come from different publications. Also, these articles should not be regular news reports. They should be opinion essays intended to persuade audiences of a conclusion or thesis. You should not just write about the first two articles you find. You should look around a bit, checking out at least a dozen articles and reading through at least six articles. By getting a sense of what is out there, you will be able to choose two articles that will help you with the project. After all, some articles will be easier to analyze and evaluate than others.

STEP 2: Write the Final Project
Once you have your two articles, you can begin writing your analysis and evaluation. The final submitted project should contain all of the following:

Part I: Importance of the Topic

What is your topic? Why did you choose this topic? What is the debate or controversy about and why is the issue important you and/or others?

Part II: Evaluate Publisher and Author Credibility

This five point analysis should be conducted for both of your articles. When writing this part of your project, you can answer all of these for one article, and then answer all of them for the second article. For both of your two chosen articles, answer all of the following:

A. Provide the bibliographic information (author name, title of article, venue where published, date published, and URL or link to the article).

B. Who is the publisher and what is their position within the policy economy of news media? In other words, who owns the publisher and what is the publisher’s target audience/demographic? How do these things affect the credibility of the publisher?

C. Who is the author and what credentials, expertise, training, or experience do they have on the topic? To what extent can they be a credible source/expert on this topic, and why?

D. Paraphrase the author’s argument by identifying their premises and conclusion(s) (this does not have to be in standard form but the premises and conclusions should be clear).

E. Identify and evaluate two types of reasoning in each argument

Does the author use deduction? Is their deductive reasoning valid and sound?
Does the author use induction (statistical reasoning, causal reasoning, abductive reasoning, analogical reasoning)? Are their inductive arguments strong or weak?
If relevant, do you notice any fallacies in their argument?

Part III: What Else?

What else would you need to know or want to know before reaching a firm conclusion on this topic and why? Provide at least two examples to illustrate.

Finding and Evaluating Articles, Authors, and Publishers

When it comes to deciding on a topic and finding articles, there are two ways to proceed. You can choose a topic and then look for articles, or you can search articles to explore possible topics.

If you have a topic in mind, you can find articles by:

Searching your topic plus “opinion articles” or “opinion essays” in a search engine
Searching on more than one search engine (Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) [See Lesson 3.2]
Searching through lists of relevant magazines and newspapers for publications that would carry essays on your topic
If you want to search publications to find a topic, you can:

Search for lists of relevant magazines and newspapers and find publications that would carry essays on your topic (for example, you can find a list of US magazines on Wikipedia)
Choose several publications and search their websites for your topic
To evaluate publications [See Lesson 3.3, 6.4], you can:

Read the “About” page for the newspaper or magazine
Search for a media ownership chart (like this or this)
Search Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (fair.org)
Search for “media bias” charts (but be careful!)
Search Wikipedia (but be careful!)
To evaluate authors [See Lesson 5.4, 6.4], you can:

Read their bio on the publisher’s website
Search for their personal website
Look for their faculty or researcher page
Search Wikipedia (but be careful!)
How to Evaluate Reasoning

Deductive Reasoning (Van Cleave 1.6-1.8; [See Lesson 4.1, 4.2, 4.4])

When evaluating deductive reasoning, you must identify the premises (usually at least two) and the conclusion. Then you must perform the informal test of validity: if we assume the premises are true, is there any possible way for the conclusion to be false? If the argument is valid, then you must perform a soundness test: are all the premises actually true? If you aren’t sure whether the premises are true, then explain what you would need to know to find out in order to say whether they are true or false.

Inductive Reasoning

Statistical Reasoning (Van Cleave 3.1; [See Lesson 5.2])

When you evaluate statistical reasoning, you must first identify what kind of claim is being made. Are the statistics used just provide insight on one phenomenon? Are the statistics used to relate two or more phenomena? If it is two or more, does the argument establish a correlation? Additionally, you must also examine the sample for the statistics. Is the sample random and non-biased? Is the sample size large enough? Finally, if the author links to the statistics they use, you will be able to check these matters. If the author does not link to the statistics, then explain the extent to which you trust that the author is citing accurate information.

Causal Reasoning (Van Cleave 3.4; [See Lesson 5.3])

When you evaluate causal reasoning, you must first identify which phenomena are identified as cause and which as effect. Then you must identify the background conditions by conducting the necessary conditions test and the sufficient conditions test. Does the author identify all the background conditions? (Usually the presence of causal reasoning in an argument implies that there is also statistical reasoning being used to establish a correlation.)