My topic doesn’t really coincide with my major. I chose it because I thought it was interesting and it was one of the first relevant debates that came to mind when I was brainstorming.
When researching I would first do a broad online search of “public transportation private transportation” and would click on various frontpage links that mentioned the pros and cons of either. Any website that seemed to debate against either side was open game for me. Afterward, I would read the article and despite my initial position on the argument, I would objectively analyze their reasoning for public or private transportation and see if they made sense. Additionally, finding a source and seeing if they had small mistakes like spelling or grammatical errors helped me determine their credibility compared to other sources. If I didn’t know the website brand name beforehand I would pay more attention to these tinier details to gauge how sensible the article was. When a website listed its sources at the bottom it made me both skeptical and approving since their sources could be illegitimate so I had to approach the article with a grain of salt still.
I verified my opposing sources by their level of reasoning and competency in listing the pros of private transportation over public transportation. One of my opposing sources was actually from a car dealership and it made me feel confident in their article because the inherent goal of that dealership is to sell cars and they would want to do everything possible in that article to describe the benefits of private over public transportation.
For all of my sources, I tried to view them through a scientific/logical lens. Additionally, I liked the source more if it quoted statistics instead of making blanket statements with no relevant citations attached. Overall I tried using a combination of all my sources to formulate my position and especially when presenting the pros of my argument.