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COMP 1500 College Writing

What is the Information Cycle?

The Information Cycle is the progression of media coverage of a newsworthy event. It refers to how information is produced and distributed over time.

It will help you determine what types of sources may be available for your research topic including:

Social media (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X, etc.)
Mainstream Media (TV news, Internet news, etc)
Popular Magazines
Scholarly Journals
Books

When researching a topic, you need to investigate a variety of sources to gather enough information.

The Information Cycle

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The Information Cycle
The progression of media coverage of a newsworthy event.

• Breaking news
• Social media | TV | Websites | Radio
• Example: TikTok, Instagram, CNN, NPR

• Within days
• Newspapers | Websites
• Example: Refinery29 News, The New York Times

• Within a month
• Popular magazines
• Example: Time, Teen Vogue, National Geographic

• 3+ months later
• Scholarly journals
• Example: Journals of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Association of Computing Machinery

• 12+ months later
• Books | Government documents
• Example: Coral Reefs by Peter F. Sale, Nice Racism by Robin DiAngelo, Institute of Education Sciences: College Affordability Views and College Enrollment

What is Peer Review?

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The peer review process is a part of the research process. Remember! The research process is cyclical.

What does it mean when an article is peer reviewed?

First, researchers do some research.
Then, they write up their findings.
They submit their article to a journal for peer review.
The journal sends the article to other experts in the same field to review before publishing.
If the article stands up to peer review (review by the researchers' peers) it can be published in the journal.
Other researchers can now use that research to do their own research.
And the process begins again.