citizen journalism
(noun)
Independent reporting, often by amateurs on the scene of an event, and disseminated via new media.
Examples of citizen journalism in the following topics:
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Types of Material on the Internet
- The most common source of reliable, credible information you will find on the Internet is through scholarly journals and databases.
- Most online scholarly journals are categorized by certain subjects, professions, and fields of study and allow you to seek out the most targeted information possible.
- Many online journals and databases will only let you preview an article abstract or summary, requiring a paid per-article or subscription fee to view the complete article.
- Video can provide you a rich, visual depth to your Internet research, providing you with first-hand accounts, video tutorials and diaries, and citizen journalism.
- Most mainstream journalism outlets can no longer keep up social media's immediacy of information sharing, making some into a form of citizen journalism that provides real-time, first-person accounts of world events.
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Variations in Accuracy
- Typically, you'll turn to scholarly sources such as academic journals, scientific research, or data.
- Secondary sources are written about primary sources and include documents such as reviews, critiques, biographies, and other scholarly books or journal articles.
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Topic Research: Gathering Materials and Evidence
- Academic journals and publications (particularly if they have been peer-reviewed) make for excellent scholarly sources.
- They can often point you to online journal collections or academic search engines where you can find reliable, credible sources.
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Sources of Information
- If you want the most up-to-date sources of information about your topic, look for articles in academic journals and news publications.
- Books and articles published in academic journals usually go through a lengthy peer review process that verifies the author's expertise and the material's accuracy.
- Libraries provide many different resources for research, including research librarians, specialized databases and scholarly journals, and, of course, books.
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Introducing the Topic, Thesis, and Main Points
- Scientists are flooding academic journals, fashion magazines, and talk shows with arguments about all things D, ranging from sunscreen to supplements.
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Building Credibility
- However, it is important to note that, for a public speaker, character is not as simple as being a nice person or a law-abiding citizen.
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Sample Informative Speech
- The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction...
- And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
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Informative vs. Persuasive Speeches
- The State of the Union is an example of a speech that is instructive, because the President of the United States is supposed to tell the members of Congress what the state of the union is, while also being persuasive, by aiming to persuade citizens to adopt the beliefs of the President.
- However, the State of the Union also contains heavy pathos that is intended to make citizens feel confident about the President's handling of the nation and hopeful about the future.
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Choosing the Main Points
- You could look at sources such as professional journals and conference bulletins from previous years to see what issues are important to ambitious paralegals.
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Research Tips: Start Early, Use a Bibliography, and Evaluate Material Critically
- Some bibliographies appear as standalone books, while others appear in academic journals or online resources.