In speech class we're beginning the preparation for our first big speech of the semester; the informative speech. In class on Thursday we were told to start researching and gather at least four sources to list citations from in our speech, with two being allowed to come from the internet. My teacher** said that when finding quotes and statistics and such you have to be careful about where you find them to get an unbiased opinion. Her example was if you were doing a speech about gun control or abortion you shouldn't get your information from the NRA or pro-life websites. That didn't quite sit right with me. Also while I was doing some searches for statistics on homeschooling, which is the topic I chose, I was reading the comments section on an article and they mentioned the whole "oh you shouldn't look at the HSLDA stuff because it'll be biased and you have to look at an unbiased opinion" etc. But my question is, aren't all the articles and websites from "the other side" of the argument biased too? In fact they are probably MORE biased and less likely to present true facts then an NRA, pro-life, or the HSLDA website. Because in the case of the NRA they're whole case is based on the constitution and based on protecting our original rights! that doesn't seem very biased to me. Now I can see if you're looking at just random peoples blogs or whatever it might not be represented unbiased, but if you're going to do your research from the official sites, that would be best. It just really bugs me... If you're supposed to be unbiased in your research, saying don't look at this particular organizations website is already showing bias. So now I'm left with the dilemma of figuring out exactly what is meant by "unbiased" so I can quote the HSLDA. Yay for college!
**Short disclaimer: This post is not meant to bash my teacher, she's very very nice and helpful and definitely my favorite teacher this semester. :)
OMZ Resa! I totally agree! When people say "Use unbiased information" what they really mean (at least it sounds like they really mean) "don't use the correct information. :P Its makes no sense!!! XP
ReplyDeleteGood luck finding anything that is unbiased, anywhere. Groups like NARAL will say it's perfectly awesome to get an abortion, just ask these select people we have chosen to represent everyone, etc. I can see your professor's point about finding unbiased reporting, I suggest that you find something from two opposing views, and present them as being from opposing views, and then try to find actual facts to put in the middle, and then point out how easy it is for people to become misinformed by reading various stories... Or maybe you can do an informative speech on the different biases of the media, etc. Or you can just do the best you can and see where the cookie crumbles, so to speak. Hope that made sense. :)
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