You’ll need to have selected the news item that your Annotated Bibliography will be focusing on from the list on the Algorithms Around Us assignment. This news item forms the basis of your research. In the summer, given that we only have eight weeks, I very much encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to finish one assignment by starting another!
After reading through your news item, find one source that you think you would like to use that expands on your understanding of that use of algorithmic decision making tools. As you’re researching be sure to think about the SIFT process that we discussed as well as what factors you’re considering for deciding whether or not the source is reliable enough. Taking notes as you’re thinking your research process through can help when you’re writing up the annotation.
Write a brief summary of what’s in your source. Do not write a summary of the original news item, as that’s not one of the sources you’re expected to provide for the Annotated Bibliography. It’s important to stress that summaries need to be brief (about 100 words or so) but still do a good job of describing what this material is providing.
After you’ve written the summary of the material, write a short discussion of any strengths or weaknesses in the material based on your understanding of the SIFT process and the CRAAP factors. This short discussion does not need to hit every factor from the CRAAP list, but should discuss the most prominent qualities.
The proportion of summary to credibility discussion should be at least 50/50 in your annotations. If you’re going to err in one direction or another, err in the direction of more credibility discussion. Altogether your submission for this week should be about 250 words and be formatted something like what’s below:
example:
Murphy, H. (2019, January 21). Coming Soon to a Police Station Near You: The DNA ‘Magic Box’. New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/science/dna-crime-gene-technology.html (Links to an external site.)
This newspaper article will be useful in addressing the challenges of introducing new technology into the criminal justice system. The article describes the use of Rapid DNA machines which permit the analysis and evaluation of DNA systems by police departments without needing to send samples out to external labs. This technology can provide reports on evidence collected at crime scenes much more quickly, but experts point to potential issues with samples collected in problematic fashions. Data collected on innocent parties is also likely to remain linked to criminal investigations. The New York Times, who published the article, is a trusted news outlet; and the article references several experts in the field in its coverage and provides their institutional affiliations to document their expertise. While the Times is a commercial publisher, there is no apparent financial benefit or conflict apparent with the article’s publication. The indications are strong that the information provided is accurate. The author has no specific authority on DNA testing or criminal investigations as a newspaper reporter on general assignment, but has been writing for the Science section of the Times focusing on DNA technology for some time. The article was published in 2019 on the NYT website, which makes it current for the topic of genetic analysis.
