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Chapter Objectives
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The following are the main learning objectives from this chapter. To help you coordinate your studies, these objectives are organized into sub-sections (3-1, 3-2, etc.) and listed with the relevant page numbers from the textbook.
Objective 3-1

Understand the basic concept of credibility.

  • Be familiar with the difference between assessing the credibility of a claim and assessing the credibility of a source.
Objective 3-2

Understand the ways of assessing a claim that comes without supporting argument.

  • Recognize the importance of direct observation but also the factors that might render such observation unreliable.
  • Understand the broad significance of background information and the way it plays into assessments of credibility.
  • Recognize what burden of proof means and how to apply that criterion.
Objective 3-3

Understand the ways of assessing the source of a claim.

  • Understand the criteria for assessing someone's expertise: education, experience, accomplishments, reputation, and position in the relevant field.
  • Recognize the factors that diminish a person's credibility.
Objective 3-4

Understand the issues of credibility that arise for public sources of information.

  • Be able to assess the credibility of news media.
  • Be able to assess the credibility of Internet sources.
Objective 3-5

Understand the issues of credibility that arise in advertising.

  • Be able to assess what claims an advertisement is really committing itself to and what grounds it is giving you for accepting those claims.







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