Info Source Analysis

One source I would use to decide on what to do about furthering my education is the internet, specifically websites for the colleges I am interested in. I would look first at the school pages and compare how they present themselves to prospective students, then I would find a state sponsored website that had each school’s educational statistics. I know these sites would be reliable because the school websites are for highly reputable schools and anything put on those sites are to keep up that school’s reputation. I know the state sites would be reputable and reliable because the state is not biased toward any school or anything of the sort, but simply puts the information out for people to find.

Another source I could use are teachers that I know, such as my mother and high school teachers that I have this year. Since I want to be a teacher, a reliable source to find out first-hand information is a teacher. I would not, however, speak to just one or two teachers, and not only teachers in my desired field. I would talk to multiple different teachers, in every possible subject to get a better view of what teaching is about. I believe this source would be reliable because I am not speaking to one specific teacher, but instead compiling information from multiple ones to get a better idea. While one or two teachers might be biased, 10 or 15 are much less likely to be such. Speaking to different teachers from different schools will also help to get rid of a “bad student rule.” If I spoke to only teachers from a maximum security juvenile facility, I might get answers about how bad the students are and how rude. But if I spoke to teachers from Bauxite, Sheridan, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and a correctional facility, I might get a bette...

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...to look for articles that described each school and any events that made it into the news. I would hope to see little to no articles about crime or death, and more about expansion and growth in the schools. This resource would help me to figure out how large the school plans to get based on its growth in the last few years. It will also help me see if there is a high crime rate in a certain school as compared to others. If a school has lost 10 students on campus in a semester as compared to another’s 2 a year, I am more likely to choose the school with a lower death rate. However, to reduce the amount of bias that can be produced, I would make sure to check not just local papers but papers around the state. Local papers would help me to find the smaller issues with the schools, like robbery or bullying, while bigger papers would show growth and expansion much more.