INFORMATION LITERACY FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

This assignment is about verifying and cross-checking claims using reputable sources. Below you find a list of six claims without any supporting citations. We need to make sure the claims are supported by reputable
studies before sharing them in our research. Five of these claims can be supported by more than one
reputable study. One of the claims is baseless. Your task is to validate the claims using sources that would
be appropriate to cite in an academic paper (15 points each) and to identify which claim cannot be
supported (25 points). For each of the five validated claims, you will provide the following information:

1. Information on how you found information on the claim. List a website URL and/or a library database that
   you used to locate the information.
2. Name the sponsor or publisher of the website or the title of the source, if you found it in a database (in
   other words, name who is responsible for the site you used, a newspaper, university, government agency,
   research institute, etc.).
3. Explain why this would be a reputable source to cite in a college-level research paper. Avoid circular
   explanations like, “this source is trustworthy because it’s in a trustworthy site.” Instead, report what
   indications of reliability and accuracy are obvious on the site. Keep in mind that databases may contain a
   mixture of trustworthy and untrustworthy content, so just because something is found in a database that you
   like does not mean it is automatically reliable. For example, ProQuest contains a mixture of peer-reviewed
   articles as well as news sources.
4. Quote the sentence/paragraph that verifies the claim. Demonstrate information literacy by using quotation
   marks and an in-text citation. Provide a full reference for the source.
   Here are the six claims:
5. Over the last 60 years or so, global fertility rates have declined by almost 50%, yet the global population
   continues to increase steadily.
6. Although shingles is not transmitted from person to person, the virus itself, varicella zoster, can be spread
   from a person with an active case of shingles to one who has never had chickenpox. The exposed person
   might then develop chickenpox but not shingles.
7. In 2016, most of the refugees taken in by the United States were from Syria.
8. The Paris Agreement is based on the idea of nationally-determined contributions, which means each
   participating country can draft its own goals for responding to climate change.
9. In 2018, South Sudan was ranked the #1 most fragile state in the world.
10. There were almost 29,000 people infected by the Ebola virus between 2014 and 2016.
    Tip: if you find a news article that reports on the information, but references an official report as the source for that information. Go to the report and bypass the news article. You can use news articles to point you towards reputable studies and reports.