This unit teaches you the rules of the game for the whole year: how to evaluate sources (including AI), how to document your tool use, and how to make evidence-based arguments. The vocabulary below is the working language we will use in every later unit.
Vocabulary
| Term | What it means + visual cue | Sentence stem |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Anything you get information from: a book, a website, a person, an image, an AI tool. Visual: Tree with branches labeled: book, website, interview, AI chat. | My source for this claim is ___. |
| Primary source | Original evidence created at the time of the event: raw data, eyewitness accounts, original documents, original images. Visual: Camera taking a photo at the moment something happens. | ___ is a primary source because it was created at the time of ___. |
| Secondary source | Someone else's interpretation or summary of primary sources: textbooks, review articles, news reporting on a study. Visual: Person writing about a photo they did not take. | ___ is a secondary source because the author ___. |
| OPVL | A four-question framework for evaluating any source: Origin, Purpose, Value, Limitations. Visual: Diamond shape with O, P, V, L at the four points. | Using OPVL, this source's biggest limitation is ___. |
| Evidence | Specific data, observations, or facts from a source that you use to support a claim. Visual: Brick wall, each brick is a piece of evidence holding up the wall (the claim). | The evidence for this is ___ from ___. |
| Claim | A statement you are arguing is true. Must be supported by evidence and reasoning. Visual: Hand raising to make a statement above a stack of evidence bricks. | My claim is that ___. |
| Reasoning | The logical connection that explains WHY your evidence supports your claim. Visual: Bridge connecting evidence on one side to claim on the other. | This evidence supports my claim because ___. |
| Hypothesis | A testable proposed explanation that you can investigate with evidence. Visual: Light bulb with a question mark inside. | My hypothesis is that ___ because ___. |
| Observation | Something you notice directly using your senses or instruments: a measurement, a description, a recorded fact. Visual: Eye next to a thermometer. | I observed that ___. |
| Inference | A conclusion you make by combining observations with reasoning. Goes beyond what you directly observe. Visual: Detective's magnifying glass with thought bubble. | From the observation that ___, I infer that ___. |
| Bias | A leaning toward one perspective that may shape how a source presents information. All sources have some bias; the question is what kind and how much. Visual: Scale tipped to one side. | This source may be biased toward ___ because ___. |
| Citation | A note that tells your reader exactly where you got a piece of information so they can check it. Visual: Footprint linking back to a source. | I am citing ___ for this claim. |
| Hallucination (AI) | When an AI tool generates information that sounds confident but is actually false or invented. The AI is not lying. It does not know what is true. Visual: Robot speaking a sentence with a question mark cloud over it. | I checked this AI output against ___ to make sure it was not a hallucination. |
| Disclosure (AI) | Telling your reader exactly how and where you used AI in producing your work. Required for every AI-assisted assignment in this course. Visual: Open door with light coming through. | I used AI to ___ and I am disclosing this because ___. |
| Documentation | A clear record of what tools, sources, and steps you used to make something. Like showing your work. Visual: Notebook with checkmarks. | My documentation shows that I ___. |
| Critical evaluation | Carefully judging the strength, reliability, and usefulness of a source, not just accepting or rejecting it. Visual: Scales weighing two objects. | Critically evaluating this source, I would say its strength is ___ and its weakness is ___. |
Power Notes, a way of outlining, Power 1 = main idea, Powers 2–4 = increasingly specific detail. The format lives at Notetaking & Notemaking.
Sketch vs. diagram: a sketch is your own picture, no rules; a diagram follows the class conventions. See Sketch-to-Stretch.
Word-sort warm-up. Cut the term list into cards. In pairs, sort the cards into two piles: "about evaluating sources" and "about doing science." Some terms belong in both, that is the point. Be ready to defend your sorting.
Find a partner. Each of you pick ONE term that you think will be hardest for you this year. Tell your partner why. Then together, write one sentence using BOTH of your chosen terms.
Multilingual reference
For translations of these terms into Tamil, Hindi, French, Korean, or Japanese, see the Master Vocabulary Reference: U0 section. The five-column translation tables there are an AI-assisted starting reference: verify with a native-speaker peer or teacher when precision matters.
If you would like to discuss any of these terms in your first language with an AI tutor, you may. Document that use in the AI Documentation section of any assessment that follows. See the AI Documentation Protocol.