6. Critical Thinking Essay
Does the media accurately represent research? Sometimes a news outlet does a good job summarizing important findings. However, it is surprising how often a headline and even the article itself fails to reflect the actual findings of research. Whether this is a misunderstanding or an attempt to create click bate, there are several consequences from this misinformation. For this essay, you will critically analyze some a news media article that summarizes a research study on cognition or neuroscience and consider how well the article represents the actual scientific study. This assignment will require two sources: the news article and the original study that the article is drawing from. The essay must be between 2 – 3 pages long (no exceptions), not including references. Essays need to be in your own words, and specific facts claimed in your paper need to include a citation. Citations and references need to be in APA format. I will be providing on BlackBoard links to news articles and their corresponding published research studies. Please contact me if you wish to do another relevant news story that I did not provide.
One way to organize this essay would be:
1) Summarize the major finding being reported by the news article 2) Discuss some questions the article raises
3) Analyze how well the headline reflects the content of the article 4) Discuss the conclusions of the original research study
5) Analyze how well the conclusions of the research study reflect the news article headline and summary
Some questions to consider here
– Does the news headline and story accurately reflect the study findings?
– Does the new story oversimplify, distort, or exaggerate the study results? – Does the news story leave out any important information from the study?
6) Provide your conclusion as to whether, overall, the news story does a good job in presenting this study to the public.
7) References