Workshop – Be smarter than your sources

On the 8th of November, our Dutch volunteer hosted a workshop about different kinds of sources and how to judge their reliability. It was an interactive workshop where all the participants were invited to share their ideas and look at sources together to find out if they should be trusted or not.

The workshop started with some theory about different kinds of sources, why you should be critical of them, and how you should be critical of them. We found out that basically anything that provides you with information counts as a source and that in this age of information we have to deal with numerous sources every day. The method that was taught to be smarter than your sources is called the ‘5W’s and How’ method. This method makes use of the 6 question words. With these words, questions are formed that help to have a better understanding of the source and its reliability.

After the explanation we looked at various examples of sources and tried to find out if they were reliable. We learned that it is often hard to judge a source and that it is important to always be sceptical and critical of the information you receive, which is being smarter than your sources.