Differing viewpoints

If English-speaking students must find different points of view about any issue for a research paper, our staff should be able to assist them. We may ask the student:

Are you familiar with procon.org?

ProCon.org is a nonprofit public charity that presents arguments on both sides of many subjects and issues affecting society. Since it does not have a fixed point of view, the student may get ideas about different arguments used to support one point of view or another. Although this is an American website, based in California, some of the issues it discusses are international. For example, the question of whether animals should be used in laboratory testing to develop new medicines. Those in favor of such testing explain that it has resulted in many important medications that help people and also, in some cases, animals. Some scientists believe that it is necessary to use animals in some laboratory tests, and rules are in place to make sure they are treated as well as possible. However, people who are against using animals in laboratory testing consider it always offensive, and that there must be other solutions. Detailed arguments on both sides of the question are available on procon.org. Other issues discussed in depth are the Death Penalty, whether uniforms should be required for students in schools, whether the legal drinking age should be lowered for young people, whether social networks are a positive or negative development in the world, whether euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalized, whether children should be educated with textbooks or tablets in the classroom, whether a college education is worth the expense in terms of future lifetime earnings, whether cell phones are safe to use, whether playing too many violent video games can lead to violence in real life, and many other such matters. Clearly on many of these topics, different opinions are possible, so the point would be to have clear, rational explanations of the points of view involved. Students may need further documentation on subjects to find different viewpoints. We may suggest:

If you need current information, do a periodical search, since articles will probably be newer than what is published in book form.

If the students wants to know what kind of articles to look for, the reply would be:

Look for articles written by experts in the field.

We can find experts in the field by seeing their names appear on books and other publications from reliable publishers such as noted university presses, all dealing with the same subject.

If we look for articles, try to find materials published in peer-reviewed journals. What are peer-reviewed journals? They are also called refereed journals or scholarly journals, meaning that other ajarns read articles published in them and carefully decide whether they are worthy to be published. Usually in peer-reviewed, scholarly, or refereed journals, more than one other ajarn reads articles submitted, without knowing the name of the author. So in principle they are not able to approve or disapprove of an article because someone they know wrote it. Although sometimes such articles can still be wrong after they are published, it is more likely that they have some kind of scientific seriousness than articles quickly published in a popular newspaper or magazine, where no one may check to see if the statements in it are accurate. When in doubt, students should always ask their ajarns about whether a source is acceptable to be quoted in an academic research project or thesis. For example, if the ajarn requests peer-reviewed articles only be cited, and the student finds a books review published in a peer-reviewed journal, it may be that the book review, although it appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, was not itself peer-reviewed, but only published after a single editor accepted it. In that case, it would not qualify as a peer-reviewed article. Most reliable journals will make it clear whether or not they are peer-reviewed.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)