Cite Your Sources: A Beginner's Guide for Students (and Presidents) Nov. 28, 2016

My freshman students finished their first public speaking block last week, so last night I read their reflections.

Meanwhile my news apps were open and I watched The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal report on Trump's claim (sans evidence) that "millions of people" voted illegally in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

In other words, I spent the evening in a split reality. I was simultaneously praising students for using solid attribution in the citing of statistics and facts--and watching the soon-to-be U.S. President assert voter fraud accusations, accusing "the media" of failing to report this, without citing a source for his claim.

I could go down a rabbit hole here, exploring why Trump is shouting "serious voter fraud" at the same time he's condemning the Stein campaign for its pursuing of recounts. Wouldn't voter fraud be a reason to SUPPORT scrutiny of election results? Or I could again contemplate likely reasons Trump fails to identify his private line to all things true.

But today's post has a more immediate purpose: to remind everyone (myself included) to demand attribution for facts and statistics.  This election cycle has all but erased the public's expectation for validation of sources. (As of this morning, Trump has 44k retweets and 130k likes on his "millions...voted illegally" tweet. Meanwhile, the NYT had 207 retweets and 293 likes for its "Claims With No Evidence" article.)

This disproportionate dissemination of unattributed "facts" is a Goliath, and lone English teachers across the country may need to step up as the Davids. (Who else is up to the task? Who else, day in and day out, fights the losing battle of "between you and I"?) We are the obvious ones to raise the "Cite your sources!" battle cry.

So here goes:

1) If a fact is well known and can be easily verifiable (the world has a population of 7 billion+) it does not require citation.

2) All other facts and statistics do. (Forty-seven percent of the world's population now has internet access, according to a study by the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union, as published this morning in a Denver Post article.)

3) In the Twitterverse, attribution is frequently decapitated by the 140-character guillotine. Nevertheless, the rule stands. Use two tweets if need be, or better yet link to your source.

4) Do not cite "the internet" as a source. That's sort of like saying anything green is a vegetable.

5) If you slip up, fail to attribute, and someone asks for your source, provide it immediately. (You too, Mr. President-elect.)

6) Do not share or re-post images and/or stories that fail to cite sources. Over the weekend I saw the image below posted on social media many times. I, too, am concerned about the appointment of DeVos as Secretary of Education, but in addition to the obvious photo-shop silliness, the points asserted in the post are not verifiable without look-it-up research. Regardless of which viewpoint it supports, posts like this weaken our thinking and the quality of civil discourse.

DO NOT SHARE THIS!