look at misleading information that you are exposed to every day. Find an example of a survey or poll or even a tweet that you think might be misleading.
How would you support your conclusions? You want to use statistical reasoning here not personal opinion. Places to look might be online polls where anyone can answer. If the title of a survey is misleading, how would you correct it?
Was the sample representative? Be sure to read the methodology of a survey and not only the responses to the questions. For example, you may think the sampling was not representative of the population, but you have to discuss how sampling was actually done to support your claim. After locating your inaccurate poll or article, respond to the following questions.
- How did the poll or article misrepresent the facts? How might you rewrite the title of the article more accurately?
- What was the author trying to get you to think? Why? What could be the ramifications of believing false information?
- Find and describe an article that refutes this information, if possible.
- Have you ever been sent articles that you believed just by reading the title? What was the result?
Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.
What to think about when finding an article.
When finding an article for this week's discussion, you have to find your own poll or article. You cannot use an article where someone else wrote about a misleading poll or gave an example to demonstrate a bad graph. For example, there are articles written on how Colgate claimed more dentists recommended them but that was not an accurate number. You cannot use this article because someone else wrote about it and you are using their work.
One thing to look for is a title that is misleading about what the article says. I have found many articles lately where the title is used to "draw" the reader in but then the article is almost irrelevant to the title.
