Week 12 — Should You Trust the Focus Gummy Post? Checking Sources in a Sales Page

Assignment 11 of the term — judge a sales page as a source on one claim, catch an endorsement from outside the field, trace a quotation back to its full sentence, check what a chatbot citation is worth, and explain to someone new why a confident post has not yet earned trust.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based evaluation. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. In Week 7 you learned when an appeal to authority is good evidence and when it is a fallacy; this week you learned to judge a source's credibility on one claim, trace a claim to its primary source, leave a page to see what independent sources say, check a quotation against its original, and treat a chatbot's citation as unverified until you find it. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Argument Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one short text.

The task

Your text is an illustrative sales page for a focus gummy, with no real product, company, singer, news site, researcher, or student behind it. The page belongs to the company that sells the gummies, and it links no study and no news story: "Study smarter with our focus gummies! In a survey of 120 of our customers, 84 said they studied longer. A famous pop singer says the gummies got her through exam season. A news site even quoted a sleep researcher saying 'caffeine can help focus' — and there is caffeine in every gummy. A study proves it works. And the full plan is cheap: 2 gummies a day for 28 days at 0.75 dollars a gummy."

The news site's full sentence, which the page shortened, reads (illustrative): "Caffeine can help focus for a few hours, but it can also disrupt sleep in the nights before an exam."

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and quoting the sentences you use:

1. Of the 120 customers surveyed, 84 said they studied longer. What percentage of the surveyed customers said they studied longer?
2. The plan is 2 gummies a day for 28 days at 0.75 dollars a gummy. What does the full plan cost, in dollars?
3. Of the 120 customers surveyed, how many did not say they studied longer?
4. The news site's full sentence has 20 words, and the page quotes 4 of them. How many of the sentence's words did the page leave out?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: run the four credibility questions on the sales page as a source for the claim that the gummies help students study longer, name the questions it fails and why, and say what the survey's percentage can and cannot show when the seller chose whom to ask.
• Problem 2: name the fallacy in the pop singer's endorsement, say what kind of source would have relevant expertise on whether a caffeine gummy helps studying, and say what tracing the plan's cost to its inputs does and does not settle.
• Problem 3: explain what the customers who did not say they studied longer add to the picture, and label the chain from the sales page to the news site to the researcher's own words, saying which link is the primary source and where you would go to check it.
• Problem 4: explain how cutting the sentence changes its meaning even though the quoted words are real, say what you would do if a chatbot offered you a citation for "a study proves it works", and then write the message to the friend described below.

Explain it to a non-expert

A friend who has never studied logic reads the page and asks, "A famous singer loves them, most customers studied longer, and a researcher says caffeine helps focus, so they work, right?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains in everyday words why the page has not yet earned your trust on that claim, reports the percentage of surveyed customers who said they studied longer and who chose them, and names one limit: the seller picked whom to ask, and the researcher's full sentence also warns about sleep. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a car-wax ad that says "A champion race driver says our wax protects paint for a whole year, and most of our customers agree." Model answer: "A race driver knows driving, not paint chemistry, so that endorsement tells you little about the wax. The customers who agree are people who already bought it and were asked by the company that sells it. Before trusting the claim, look for a test run by someone with no stake in the sale. Until then, treat the ad as a claim to check, not as evidence."

Use that pattern for the friend, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations, write each credibility question and fallacy name out in full, and quote the sentences you use when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. This week the chatbot is also a source: if it names a study, a figure, or a citation that is not in the sales page, ask where it came from and treat it as unverified.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory critical thinking course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about sources and evidence: credibility and the four questions (relevant expertise in this field, a track record of accuracy, independence from the outcome, and evidence shown rather than asserted), the appeal to unqualified authority, primary and secondary sources, tracing a claim, checking what independent sources say, quotations taken out of context, and fabricated citations. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a citation, a website, or a quotation, never name a real person, school, company, news outlet, or product, and never use logic symbols. Do not teach testability, controlled experiments, or cognitive biases by name.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The text is an illustrative sales page for a focus gummy, owned by the company that sells the gummies and linking no study and no news story: "Study smarter with our focus gummies! In a survey of 120 of our customers, 84 said they studied longer. A famous pop singer says the gummies got her through exam season. A news site even quoted a sleep researcher saying 'caffeine can help focus' — and there is caffeine in every gummy. A study proves it works. And the full plan is cheap: 2 gummies a day for 28 days at 0.75 dollars a gummy." The news site's full sentence, which the page shortened, reads (illustrative): "Caffeine can help focus for a few hours, but it can also disrupt sleep in the nights before an exam."
PROBLEM P1: Of the 120 customers surveyed, 84 said they studied longer. What percentage of the surveyed customers said they studied longer?
PROBLEM P2: The plan is 2 gummies a day for 28 days at 0.75 dollars a gummy. What does the full plan cost, in dollars?
PROBLEM P3: Of the 120 customers surveyed, how many did not say they studied longer?
PROBLEM P4: The news site's full sentence has 20 words, and the page quotes 4 of them. How many of the sentence's words did the page leave out?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, run the four credibility questions on the sales page for the claim that the gummies help students study longer, name the questions it fails and why, and say what the seller's own survey can and cannot show; for P2, name the fallacy in the pop singer's endorsement, describe a source with relevant expertise, and say what tracing the cost does and does not settle; for P3, explain what the customers who did not say they studied longer add, label the chain from the sales page to the news site to the researcher's own words as primary or secondary, and name where to check the original; for P4, explain how the cut changes the sentence's meaning and what I would do with a chatbot's citation for the study. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend explaining why the page has not earned trust, reporting the percentage of surveyed customers who said they studied longer and who chose them, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (20 points), source evaluation (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing the evidence so it can be checked (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 computation points, 6 evaluation points, 2 clarity points, or 2 evidence points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the friend only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct percentage of surveyed customers who said they studied longer, cost of the full plan, count of surveyed customers who did not say so, or count of words the page left out = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing reply or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
EVALUATION UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets every part named for that problem = 2; at least one part but not all = 1; none = 0. For P4, BOTH the cut quotation explained as real words with a misleading meaning, together with how I would check a chatbot's citation, AND a message to the friend that explains why the page has not earned trust, reports the percentage and who was asked, and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate evaluation = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, treating a famous name or a polished page as evidence is not accurate, and calling a well-formatted citation real without finding it is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not an evaluation error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to critical thinking, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the friend with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
EVIDENCE UNITS: For each problem, checkable values and steps, with every quoted sentence matching the sales page or the news site's sentence as printed = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or quotation, or a quotation that drifts from the text = 1; a bare figure or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. When I name a credibility question the page fails, ask me which detail in the text shows it, and when I describe the cut quotation, ask me what the full sentence says that the cut version does not. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four computations and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned total; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the total for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, quotations, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four computations, their brief interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch that traces the chain from the sales page to the news site to the researcher's own words, with a short note that says each verdict in words; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 12 skills — judging a source's credibility on one claim with the four questions, telling relevant expertise from authority outside the field, tracing a claim to its primary source, checking a quotation against its full sentence, deciding what a citation is worth before it is found, and explaining to someone new why a confident page has not earned trust — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every quoted sentence against the sales page and the news site's sentence as printed. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and check any sentence it quotes against the sales page as printed here. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com