Part of a set of university teaching materials called "Encouraging Critical Thinking Online" by Meriel Patrick of Oxford University, made openly available for adaptation and re-use in the Intute Virtual Training Suite <http: />

1. Encouraging Critical
Thinking Online
Unit 1
Checking Facts and
Gathering Opinions

2. What was William Shakespeare’s
date of birth?
• Find three websites that provide an
answer
• Fill in the boxes on the worksheet
for each of them
• Comment on any notable features
of the sites or answers you discover

3. What was William Shakespeare’s
date of birth?
• Some sources say 23 April 1564:
– The Shakespeare Country website
– Infoplease’s ‘Today’s birthday’ feature

4. Shakespeare Country website
http://www.shakespeare-country.com/william_shakespeare.htm Retrieved 20 June 2008

5. Shakespeare Country website
http://www.shakespeare-country.com/william_shakespeare.htm Retrieved 20 June 2008

6. What was William Shakespeare’s
date of birth?
• In fact, we don’t really know the precise
date
– He was baptised on 26 April 1564
– At the time, babies were usually baptised
within a few days of birth
– 23 April is Shakespeare’s death date, and
has also become the traditional date to
commemorate his birth

7. What was William Shakespeare’s
date of birth?
• However, some scholars give
reasons to doubt this
– Shakespeare Online’s biography
section suggests that if Shakespeare
had been born on 23 April, the most
probable date for his baptism would be
25 April, as this was a feast day

8. Shakespeare Online biography page
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/ Retrieved 20 June 2008

9. Summary - key things to note
• The straightforward answer to a
question is not always the most
precise
• As information is transmitted,
important qualifications are
sometimes lost

10. Why might we find conflicting
answers to a question?
• There may be real uncertainty
about the answer
• Authorities may disagree
• There may be multiple ways of
interpreting a question

11. Why might we find conflicting
answers to a question?
• Some sources may be more up to
date than others
• Answers may vary in precision
• Some sources may simply be
wrong

12. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Who is the author?
– An individual or an institution?
– What are the author’s credentials?
• Is this a scholarly resource, or a
more informal one?
• How up to date is this source?

13. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Are there reasons to doubt the
reliability of this source?
– Does it include information I know to
be false?
– Does it contradict itself or use poor
reasoning?
– Is it biased towards a particular view?

14. Questions to ask when
assessing sources
• Is the information provided
confirmed by other sources?
– Are references provided?
– Do other websites agree? (A major
advantage of the Web is that many
sources can be compared quickly and
easily.)

15. Remember the three Ws
• WHO wrote this site?
– Is the author a trustworthy source?
• WHEN was it written?
– Is it up to date?
• WHY was it written?
– Does the author have an axe to grind?

16. This slideshow is part of
Encouraging Critical Thinking Online,
a set of free teaching resources
designed to develop
students’ analytic abilities,
using the Web as source material.
For the full set, please visit
Intute Training:
http://www.intute.ac.uk/training/