MLA Guide to Digital Literacy
Second Edition
“In this short, readable guide, Ellen C. Carillo offers students tools to find, produce, and assess digital information.”
—Online Literacies Open Resource
The second edition of this best-selling classroom guide helps students understand why digital literacy is a crucial skill for their education, future careers, and participation in democracy. Offering practical guidance for assessing information online, this guide provides students with the tools to locate reliable sources among the clickbait and viral videos that pervade the web. The guide’s hands-on activities, germane readings, and lesson plans give students strategies for reading and analyzing data visualizations; finding and evaluating credible sources; learning how to spot fake news; fact-checking; crafting a research question; effectively conducting searches on Google and on library catalogs and databases; finding peer-reviewed publications; evaluating primary sources; and understanding disinformation and misinformation, filter bubbles, propaganda, and satire in a variety of sources—including websites, social media posts, infographics, videos, and more (on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube).
New to the second edition:
• attention to the ethical dimensions of digital technology, including privacy issues and bias in search algorithms—with an accompanying lesson plan
• an emphasis on how digital literacy can help stem racism, sexism, ableism, and the persistence of harmful stereotypes
• instruction on using inclusive research and citation practices to avoid perpetuating systemic bias
• a new chapter, “Composing in Digital Spaces,” that offers instruction in multimodal composition and foregrounds accessibility
• a new and up-to-date reading, “The Real History of Fake News”
• a section on avoiding plagiarism
• updated references and examples
• resource lists of digital tools, platforms, and software that can support the practices described in the guide
Later printings include an index, provided here for free download: Index (PDF)
Acknowledgments (xi)
List of Illustrations (xiii)
Preface for Instructors (1)
Why Digital Literacy? (1)
Features of This Guide (4)
New to the Second Edition (5)
The Crucial Role of Librarians (6)
1. What Is Digital Literacy? (7)
Principles That Inform This Guide (8)
How This Guide Is Organized (14)
2. Understanding Filters and Algorithms, Bots, and Visual Manipulation (16)
Filters and Algorithms (16)
Algorithmic Bias (19)
Bots (21)
Visual Manipulation (22)
Read about It (25)
“The Polarization of Extremes,” by Cass R. Sunstein (25)
3. Understanding Online Searches (31)
What Is the Difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet? (31)
Understanding Domain Names (33)
Scholarly Peer Review (34)
TRY IT (35)
1. Represent the relation between the Internet and the World Wide Web.
2. Practice keeping track of your daily website visits.
3. Test your knowledge of domain names.
4. Ponder the role of domain names in judging credibility.
5. Review types of online information sources.
4. Conducting Online Research (37)
Choosing Keywords to “Catch the Tenor” of the Conversation (37)
Conducting Broad Searches (38)
Conducting Narrow Searches (40)
Navigating Google Scholar (45)
Using a Search Engine’s Help Features (46)
Searching Library Catalogs and Databases (47)
Reviewing Your Search Results (48)
Determining a Source’s Relevance (49)
TRY IT (53)
1. Contemplate your role in source-driven writing.
2. Understand relevance.
3. Recognize the value of inclusive search and citation practices.
4. Practice documenting a broad search.
5. Practice narrowing online searches.
5. Go to the (Primary) Source! (57)
What Are Primary and Secondary Sources? (57)
I Found the Primary Source—Now What? (63)
TRY IT (76)
1. Practice finding primary sources.
2. Practice distinguishing primary sources from secondary sources.
3. Practice rhetorical reading.
4. Compose a rhetorical analysis of a visual source.
5. Practice writing a twenty-five-word summary.
6. Surveying the Conversation by Reading Laterally (78)
What Is Reading Laterally? (78)
Lateral and Vertical Reading Compared (79)
Plan Where to Go Next (83)
Understand Your Biases and Emotional Responses As You Read Laterally (84)
Recognize Psychological Phenomena As You Read (89)
TRY IT (89)
1. Understand what it means to read laterally.
2. Practice reading laterally.
3. Practice recognizing your emotional responses to sources.
4. Address the implications of psychological phenomena on your research.
7. Exploring the Credibility of Sources (91)
Exploring an Author’s Credibility (91)
Exploring a Source’s Credibility through Publication Context (93)
Recognizing Bias: A Closer Look (96)
What about the Credibility of Wikipedia and Other Wikis? (101)
Recognizing Misinformation and Disinformation (101)
TRY IT (105)
1. Practice determining an author’s credibility.
2. Practice determining sources’ biases.
3. Pay attention to an author’s word choice.
4. Notice labeling.
5. Explore Wikipedia.
Read about It (107)
“A Real History of Fake News,” by John Maxwell Hamilton and Heidi Tworek (107)
8. Working with Your Sources (114)
How to Use Sources (114)
Synthesizing Your Sources (115)
Avoiding Plagiarism (116)
TRY IT (117)
1. Explore how an author uses sources.
2. Explore how an author contributes ideas to a conversation.
3. Practice using sources for more than support.
4. Annotate to reflect on your use of sources.
5. Conduct research about how a discipline uses sources.
9. Additional Strategies and Resources (121)
Fact-Checking Web Sites (121)
Conducting Reverse Searches (123)
TRY IT (129)
1. Ponder the uses of reverse searches.
2. Practice conducting a reverse image search.
3. Practice using fact-checking sites.
4. Locate other fact-checking sites and determine their biases.
5. Determine hoaxes.
10. Composing in Digital Spaces (131)
Drawing on What You Already Know about Digital Composition (131)
Creating Multimodal Projects in Digital Spaces (132)
Rhetorical Considerations for Multimodal Composing in Digital Spaces (134)
Additional Considerations for Composing in Digital Spaces (135)
TRY IT (138)
1. Identify the five modes of communication.
2. Practice working with the modes of communication.
3. Practice conveying a visual argument.
4. Understand accessibility.
5. Define Creative Commons licensing.
11. Customizing Your Online Experience (139)
Adjusting Your Preferences (139)
Making Informed Decisions about Social Media Platforms (140)
Using Sharing, Liking, and Other Social Signals to Your Advantage (140)
Avoiding Clickbait (141)
TRY IT (143)
1. Ponder the value of customizing your online experience.
2. Research social media platforms.
3. Practice adjusting filters.
4. Develop clickbait headlines.
5. Recognize how clickbait works.
Appendix: Sample Lesson Plans (145)
Lesson Plan 1: Searching for Sources and Analyzing Their Credibility (145)
Lesson Plan 2: Reading Sources (147)
Lesson Plan 3: Exploring the Concept of Fake News (149)
Lesson Plan 4: Understanding Algorithmic Bias and Personalization (152)
Works Cited (155)
