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Explore Bias : Understand Bias

Understand Bias

Understand Bias and Expand Your Perspective

Understand your own bias and seek a variety of perspectives for a more complete understanding of an issue.

  • Bias does NOT mean that the information or source is unreliable (although some biased sources do have unreliable information).
  • BUT it is incredibly important that you seek other perspectives that might be missing in a biased source.

Taking time to understand bias, helps you to:

  • Better evaluate your sources
  • Gain deeper understanding of the topic as a whole by learning from multiple perspectives

Bias refers to perspective or point of view. Everything has some level of bias, but be wary of biased sources that spread misinformation or manipulate emotions.

Green Flags Red Flags
  • Upfront about their purpose
  • Well-respected organization (see Lateral Reading)
  • Credible facts and information
  • Clear about the source of their information
  • Avoids fear mongering or manipulating emotions.
  • Hidden extreme bias (claiming to be unbiased when clearly not)
  • Heavily relies on anonymous sources or unofficial polls
  • Data manipulated or distorted to induce emotions
  • Makes large claims unsupported by evidence
  • Headlines that mischaracterize article content

Key Take Aways: 

  • Students will cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what a text states explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
  • Students Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Types of Biased Sources

What is a biased source?

A source that shares a limited perspective about a topic or issue. 

The following types of sources can or often have a biased perspective: 

  • Non-profit or government organizations. These organizations often have an agenda, and they share perspectives and information to support that agenda. The information may be reliable (not always), but look for the perspective not shared. 
  • Businesses and Corporations
  • News organizations
  • Documentary Films 

True neutrality is not possible. All sources exhibit some bias. When possible, think about and look out for perspectives that are left out.  

Confirmation Bias

What should you do?

How to combat bias

Be aware of your own bias
It is easy to find yourself in an echo chamber, where you read stories and interact with people who share your opinions.  

To gain a deeper understanding, it is important to look beyond sources and stories that merely confirm your opinion.  

 

Read a variety of perspectives

Seek out other perspectives. What do others say about this topic or issue?

The following resources may help you find additional perspectives about current and historic topics. 

Read Laterally

But also read laterally, for a more thorough evaluation: 

Look beyond the original source to investigate claims, authors, and organizations. 

Open a new tab on your browser

  • Google the name of the organization or author in question
  • Did anything come up of interest?
  • Any red flags?
  • Do a quick Wikipedia search.
  • Or check claims against other fact-checking resources. 

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