6.1 Recognizing and accounting for bias

The first step of this is to recognize that we all carry bias. Bias roots from our home life, culture, and community. We can try to be as unbiased as possible, but subconsciously we still carry bias. There are always some hidden inward biases or feelings that may not come out in day to day outward attitudes. 

Learning to identify those hidden biases can help better society to find out what common prejudices are and how to prevent them, as well as to make people aware that they hold some biases within themselves. It can also prove to be a great way to get general knowledge about the public and what prejudices are still prevalent and which are not. 

The best way to account for bias is to understand and identify the biases we hold. 

Importance

Recognizing bias is essential to your essay.

You should be able to identify potential bias as well. 

If there's potential bias, we should also be able to argue if the results will probably be exaggerated or made to look less

Now let's talk AP Lang bias, this is bias you can find while reading a text. It’s really REALLY important to understand bias while reading. This helps formulate the context and author of the text. You can learn a lot about a person by their biases. 

AP Lang focuses a lot on current events. So a  great way to see bias in the news was the previous Presidential Election and the problem with fake news. The super liberal or super conservative stations tend to focus on only one side of the story, rather than a balanced portion of both views. 

And with that I’ll leave you with some vocab from Unit 6.

Sinecure - n. a position requiring little or no work

Surreptitious - adj. stealthy

Transgress - v. to go beyond a limit, to sin or break a law

Transmute - v. to change from one nature or form to another

Vicarious - adj. experienced by one person in place of another