Response to Oliver Parsons’ Learning Activity 4.5 Post

This is my response to Oliver Parsons’ post for Learning Activity 4.5.

Oliver (2018) asked the questions: “What is one thing that acts as a “deal-breaker” for you in the introduction of an article? What is one thing that a researcher may say that would stop you from reading beyond the introduction?”

Hi Oliver,

For me, it is not so much what is written explicitly in the article that can act as a deal-breaker for me, but rather the tone that it is written in. I veer away from articles where the authors appear to be biased or partial to certain perspectives of the research topic. While I understand that bias cannot be completely avoided and all researchers have their own perspectives, I find it very off-putting when there is an obvious voice of favoritism for one side or another in an academic research paper. I believe that researchers need to remain as impartial and objective as possible when writing academic articles. One way that biases come out is when the authors cite only resources that support their views and opinions and do not present background information or prior knowledge in it’s entirety in order to sway the readers towards their way of thinking.

Thank you for your insightful post and question!

Ruth

References

Parsons, O. (2018, January 28). Learning Activity 4.5 [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/oplearning/2018/01/28/learning-activity-4-5/