In his book, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson brings up the question of authority.  Why should we believe these people telling us that Y makes X happen?  As a child, he believed that everything in his science book was true because it was in his science book.   Not much of an argument.  As students of rhetoric, and more generally, students, we are invited by Weston to investigate our own arguments in preparation for future arguments.

Weston gives us the checklist (24-36):

[ ] Cite your sources 

[ ] Seek informed sources

[ ] Seek impartial sources

[ ] Cross-check sources

[ ] Use the web with care

[ ] Correlations may have alternative explanations

[ ] Work toward the most likely explanation

[ ] Expect complexity

Back to Crowdsourcing: A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston

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