How can a student doing research, determine the biases of a source?

Answer 1

They can't. When a teacher tells you to do that, they're actually asking you to sort between "good bias" and "bad bias". The standard way of doing that is to sort between sources that have been commonly accepted as having authority (reputable news publications, scholarly journals, books by reputable authors) from non-authorized sources (tabloids, personal websites, self-published books, etc.). Also, it depends upon the context--in a religious school, the Bible is often "unbiased" evidence, but in a secular class, it's heavily "biased." Similarly, one professor may consider Fox News to be biased, while another may consider ABC news to be biased (in opposing directions).

If you really want to look at bias, look towards who gains and benefits from the perspective portrayed in the source, and consider how the same information could be portrayed differently. Consider who's voices are being heard, and who is silent. Look at word choices (who gets the "positive" adjectives, for example) for indications about "hidden" biases. If a news report says "Leading economic indicators show that the economy is recovering," ask yourself "what indicators? Whose interests do those indicators represent? What do they mean by the economy (economy of the rich? of corporations? of the government? of the average person? of the poor?)? If it's recovering, where was it before? What does it mean to be recovering?" And so forth.

My point is that, in a school context, really all a teacher is usually asking is that you toe the line, and use "scholarly" sources. But if you want to be a serious scholar, and actually learn to think critically, start with the assumption that every source is automatically biased, and work to determine how these biases (what I would call "interests") effect how the work is presented. Consider the communities of practice (the groups involved in the reading, writing, and publishing of the article), and how these various group are effected by the information.

Answer 2

Bias usually comes from getting paid. Find out who pays the author of your information and you will know in what way he or she is likely to be biased.

Answer 3

You have to expand your research.

You can find other sources - and see if any disagree.

Follow through is needed.

GOD bless us always.