Week 9 Quiz

The running draft's topic is "our college's phone policy in lecture classes." Which of these illustrative questions is a research question that could lead to a thesis?

Select one.

• Phones in lecture classes and how students use them.
• How do phones, laptops, tablets, and smartwatches affect learning in every subject, in every grade, and in every country?
• Do students bring phones to lecture?
• When schools restrict phones during class, what happens to students' learning, and which students gain the most?

Jeff Amy's news article for PBS News reports on state laws that ban or regulate cellphones in schools. The running draft uses it as a secondary source. For which research question would the same article become a primary source?

Select one.

• How did news outlets cover the new state laws on phones in schools?
• Which students gain the most when schools restrict phones during class, and by how much?
• What do the new state laws on phones in schools require?
• Do phone restrictions change exam results in schools?

A polished health website has a .org address. What does that domain ending tell you about the site's reliability?

Select one.

• It is reliable, because .org addresses belong to nonprofits.
• It is unreliable, because .org sites always argue for a cause.
• Nothing, because anyone can register a .org address.
• It is reliable, because .org sites must be reviewed before they go live.

You want to read the illustrative website headlined "The Science of Screen-Free Focus" laterally. Which move is lateral reading?

Select one.

• Reading the site's About page carefully to see who it says it is and what it says it does
• Checking whether the site's design and logo look professional
• Counting how many studies the site's own pages mention
• Searching the site's name with the word "funding" in a new browser tab

Lateral reading shows that the illustrative website is the marketing arm of a company that sells lockable phone pouches to schools. Which response treats the site's bias the way this course teaches?

Select one.

• Use its claims as written, because a .org site is a nonprofit.
• Ignore its purpose, because only the content of a page matters.
• Name its purpose to sell, then cross-check its claim against other sources.
• Treat every sentence on the site as false, because it sells something.

The peer-reviewed article in the mini-source set studied schools in four English cities, while the running draft argues about college lecture sections. Which checklist question does that gap raise most directly?

Select one.

• Currency
• Relevance
• Authority
• Purpose

The top result in a general search engine is the most credible source on a topic.

True or false.

• True
• False

Which two sources in the running draft's mini-source set are primary sources? Select both.

Select every option that applies.

• The news article by Jeff Amy (PBS News)
• The peer-reviewed article by Beland and Murphy
• The book by Nicholas Carr, The Shallows
• The Department for Education's guidance page

Week 1 taught that every text has a writer, an audience, and a purpose. In this week's terms, what is a source's bias?

Select one.

• A source's point of view and the purpose behind it
• A mistake in a source that proves it is false
• The number of opinions a source contains
• A source's choice to use popular rather than scholarly language

A chatbot summarizes the peer-reviewed article in the mini-source set by saying that phone bans "raise every student's grades." The article found a small average gain concentrated among the lowest-achieving students. What is the best way to handle the chatbot's summary?

Select one.

• Use it, because a chatbot reads the whole article quickly.
• Check it against the article's own summary; it overstates the finding.
• Use it, because the article was peer reviewed.
• Drop the article from the essay entirely, because the chatbot found a flaw in it.