Post #3- Evaluation of Credibility of a Non-Scholarly Source
In this technological era, it is not difficult for a person to pull out their cell phone and search up any particular questions in their mind. A person can have thousands of results in just an instant. This being said, how does anyone know if a source is trustworthy? Can all of these sources be valid? How do you know if you chose the most reliable source?
Background of The Article
First and foremost, Robert Farrington is a millennial money expert and a student loan expert. He created a helpful and resourceful website that informs college students about how to survive and withdraw from student loan debt. On November 30th, 2018, Farrington published an article called, “Should College Be Free? (And Proposals to Make It Happen).” In this article, Farrington discusses the positive effects of granting free tuition. One of them being, creating an opportunity for intelligent students who cannot afford college. He also discusses the negative effects which will cause students to become less money-savvy. In addition, he proposes various ideas of what steps we can take to actualize this proposal. Lastly, he concludes his article by stating his thoughts on this argument.
Farrington’s article was coherent and accessible. However, is it truly trustworthy? After analyzing the article, I came to the conclusion that it is not trustworthy. Farrington’s article is not trustworthy for two reasons, only having facts with no factual information and creating them into opinionated facts. Second, he just incorporated bias links.
Why is Farrington’s Article Not Trustworthy?
Farrington did an amazing job in explaining each an every effect of granting free tuition. The only issue was that his facts were not supported with factual information. For example, in the last point, he explains that there will be a decline in enrollment in private universities if students are granted free tuition. Since he was explaining a decrease in enrollment, he could have easily incorporated statistical information to support this fact. Statistical or factual information should always back up a source of evidence/facts. Thus, any evidence that is not backed up will be considered opinionated and not trustworthy.
Since Farrington is a millennial money and student loan expert, his writing may be seen as trustworthy. However, this article has various opinionated facts that create his evidence bias. For instance, in his second point, he implies that the lack of education has not been a barrier to success in the United States. As support for his evidence, he uses the experiences of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Their experiences are great examples but, as he explains their success, he slightly incorporates his opinion. He incorporates his opinion by stating that their experiences are very successful without any proof. Although this may be true, not every reader will agree with Farrington because everyone has a different view of success. Moreover, at the end of the article, Farrington clearly based his ideas of “how to make free college happen ” all on his opinion. He did not include any evidence/facts that demonstrated the readers that his ideas are one hundred percent genuine. Therefore, this point of the article is also opinionated. Not only does he include his opinion on each effect, but he also includes bias links.
Throughout the article, Farrington included links that were related to his main ideas. These links were completely biased because he used his own, past articles as evidence. By using his past articles as evidence, it makes the reader believe that his article is completely biased. At the very beginning of the article, Farrington states that he will explain both sides of the argument, but it is clear that he does not. A writer that is not bias should use outside sources. If they do not use outside sources, the information will not count as evidence. It will still count as the author’s opinion because the sources may not even contain any factual information. Most importantly, the author can easily tamper with the sources to his/her advantage at any given moment.
Conclusion
As demonstrated above, Robert Farrington’s article is not a trustworthy article. Overall, he is a reliable writer and his website is very credible. However, this particular article may not be the best article because of the lack of factual and unbiased information provided.
Works Cited
Farrington, Robert, et al. “Should College Be Free? (And Proposals to Make It Happen).” The College Investor, 30 Nov. 2018,
https://thecollegeinvestor.com/23259/should-college-be-free/
