Week 12 Discussion — Whose Word Counts Here? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

Every day you lean on sources you never checked: a reviewer, a coach, a forum, an app, a chatbot. Some have earned that trust on the claim at hand and some have only earned it somewhere else, and in a real case the line is hard to draw, which is why the course keys only clear passages and leaves cases like these to discussion.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: The running question's strongest objection says that losing sleep can hurt exam performance (illustrative). Picture three sources a student finds on that claim: a campus health office's web page that gives the claim and names no study; a popular study-tips creator with a large following who also sells a focus supplement; and a news story that describes a study and links it. Run the four credibility questions on each source for this one claim, say where you would go next to trace the claim to its primary source, and argue which source you would lean on most and why. You are weighing sources, not deciding whether the library should stay open.

Option B: Choose one source you rely on in your own life for one kind of claim: a product reviewer, a coach, a forum, a podcast, an app, or a chatbot (no politicians, parties, campaigns, election polls, or news outlets, and no one's real name). Pick one specific claim it made, run the four credibility questions on it, say how you would trace that claim to where it started or check what independent sources say, and argue whether the source has earned your trust on that claim.

There is no single right answer about how much trust a real source has earned. What the course settles is the test: credibility is judged one claim at a time, by relevant expertise in that field, a track record of accuracy, independence from the outcome, and evidence shown rather than asserted. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, run the four credibility questions on each of the three sources for the sleep claim, say where a trace would go next, and say which source you would lean on most. For Option B, name the source and the one claim, run the four questions, say how you would trace or check the claim, and say whether the source has earned your trust on it.
• Say in one sentence where your judgment is weakest: the question you could not answer from what you know, or the check you have not yet made.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (credibility, relevant expertise, track record, independence from the outcome, primary source, secondary source, tracing a claim, independent source) correctly.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
• Write from your own reasoning, in your own words, and keep real people's names, election polls, and live political questions out of your examples.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: offer the strongest case against a classmate's judgment, name a credibility question they skipped, or suggest where a trace or an independent check would go. "Nice post!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option A. On the sleep claim, the study-tips creator has a large following but no shown expertise in sleep research, and the creator sells a focus supplement, so independence is missing too. The health office passes on independence but shows no evidence; it names no study. The news story at least links the study, so it is a secondary source that hands me the primary one. I would lean on the study itself, reached through the news story, and check whether it was about students like me.

Notice how it runs the questions on one claim, separates the retelling from the original, and judges the sources without taking a side on the library. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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