📘 Part 3: Information

This episode's vocabulary

To pass something on (phrasal verb) - to give someone something that another person has given you.

To convey (verb) - to express feelings, thoughts, or information to other people.

Janitor(noun) - a person employed to take care of a large building, such as a school, and who deals with the cleaning, repairs, etc.

Counter- (prefix) - opposing or as a reaction to something.

To anticipate (verb) - to imagine or expect that something will happen.

Interlocutor (noun) - someone who is involved in a conversation.

To verify (verb) - to prove that something exists or is true, or to make certain that something is correct.

Fact-checking (noun) - the process of checking that all the facts in a piece of writing, a news article, a speech, etc. are correct.

Resource (noun) - something that can be used to help you.

Skewed (adj.) - not accurate or exact.

Perspective (noun) - a particular way of considering something.

Cognizant (adj.) - understanding or realizing something.

Fake news (noun) - false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke.

To constitute (verb) - to form or make something.

Wary (adj.) - not completely trusting or certain about something or someone.

Bias (noun) - the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment.

To overlap (verb) - if two or more activities, subjects, or periods of time overlap, they have some parts that are the same.

Source (noun) - someone or something that supplies information.

Leap (noun) - a big change, increase, or improvement.

Mass hysteria (noun) - a phenomenon in which a group of people simultaneously exhibit similar hysterical symptoms.

Witch hunt (noun) - an attempt to find and punish people whose opinions are unpopular and who are said to be a danger to society.

Misleading (adj.) - causing someone to believe something that is not true.

Medium (noun) - a method or way of expressing something.

To seek someone/something out (phrasal verb) - to look for someone or something, especially for a long time until you find him, her, or it.

To conform (verb) - to behave according to the usual standards of behaviour that are expected by a group or society.

To perceive (verb) - to come to an opinion about something, or have a belief about something.

Conceivably (adverb) - possibly.

Intricacies (plural noun) - complicated details.

Rigid (adj.) - stiff or fixed; not able to be bent or moved.

To inculcate (verb) - to fix beliefs or ideas in someone's mind, especially by repeating them often.

Conducive (adj.) - providing the right conditions for something good to happen or exist.

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, what kinds of professions are related to giving information to others?

R: Well, anything that involves passing things on, whether it's word of mouth or something like scriptwriting. You always need to be able to convey information. It might be easier to talk about the jobs that don't involve this, even something really simple like being a janitor. You still have to be able to tell your boss what you've done that day and what needs to be done and the kind of things that you need. So that's involving or that involves passing on information.

M: What's the difference between providing information by phone and by email?

R: One's more live, so to speak, while the other is less so. So when it comes to talking on the phone, you have the instant response in the here and now. Whereas if you're talking by... Or, sorry, communicating by email, you don't talk, you have the wait time between the reply, and then your counter-reply. And there's thinking time as well, you can plan out what it is you're going to say, more effectively than in a live conversation where it's difficult to anticipate what the speaker's going to say back to you, or what your interlocutor is going to say back to you.

M: How can people check whether a piece of information is correct or not?

R: Well, most things are easily verified with a simple Google search. But you could also use something like a fact-checking website or an encyclopedia. None of this necessarily has to be online. It could be something paper-based. I have a Guinness encyclopedia, for example.

M: And do you think people do that? Do they check the information using these sources?

R: I don't think they do it as much as they should. Because the number of times I have to tell people have you tried Google first or have you tried this reference resource first before, before they actually do it. So it happens quite often.

M: Do people trust the information online?

R: Probably less so than before. People are waking up to things like skewed perspectives of media narratives. And they're increasingly cognizant of things like fake news, although what constitutes fake news is up for debate. So the gist of all of this is - not as much as they used to. We're more wary of what we see and hear online now.

M: And why do you think this happens? Why do people like mistrust information?

R: Well, like I said, they're more aware of it. It's been a key talking point in the media for, well, at least half a decade now, perhaps longer. And so because there's just been, there's been this awareness-raising experience, people are less trusting of what they see online now.

M: How do you verify the accuracy of information that you come across online?

R: Well, there are fact-checking websites. Although it's important to point out that some have a political bias, which is rather crucial to be aware of in this day and age. The other thing is, you can see if the information overlaps with what you're hearing from other sources. So for example, if we think about what happened on September the 11th, every news site imaginable was reporting on that. So because the information from all of these sources overlapped on the key features, it was easy to understand that what you are hearing is, in fact, the truth.

M: Do you think that people are more likely to believe true or false information these days?

R: Unless there's been some sort of leap in human evolution that I'm unaware of, people probably haven't changed much compared to the past. I mean, there have always been cases of mass hysteria and witch hunts based on misleading information. I think the only thing that's changed is the medium. And perhaps the scale because there are more people now. But that's not changed the fundamentals.

M: Right, but more people believe true or false information? What do you reckon?

R: The honest answer is I don't know. I mean, because people tend to seek out information that conforms to their own biases. They are more likely to believe information they perceive as true, but that's not the same thing. But to answer the original question, I don't know. It's hard to say.

M: What information can people get from television?

R: It might be easier to say what they can't get frankly. It seems like there are channels. Or there were. I don't watch television anymore. But it seems like there are channels for just about everything you could conceivably want to know about, from the intricacies of how housewives in New York live to military history from the medieval era. So it's all out there.

M: What are some of the consequences of misinformation for society?

R: We already talked about mass hysteria and witch hunts. But there are other things like just a general drumming up of fear that makes people easy to manipulate. So the consequence of having people that are easy to manipulate and control is that society becomes more rigid, people are less trusting of each other. And that can lead to more severe problems, both physically and psychologically.

M: Are there any news sources that people trust more than others?

R: Well, like I already said, people tend to seek out information that conforms more or less to how they already see the world. Say, for example, that you're a conservative person, you're probably more likely to trust a conservative news source. In the same way, if you're a liberal person, then the same thing will be true for you. So it's less about the source of the news itself, and rather how it matches up with how that person sees the world.

M: Do you think that schools should teach critical thinking skills to help students better evaluate information?

R: I'm not sure it can be taught explicitly, but awareness of it could be raised. I say that because schools inculcate mass education. And the purpose behind that is usually to have a society that's pretty stable, where people believe more or less the same things. And that's not really an environment that's conducive to critical thinking. So it's not something that you're likely to learn about in school, you just are aware of it in the background, and it can be pointed out, but to sit down and have a lesson about critical thinking in a class, that seems like the opposite of how to teach critical thinking.

Discussion

M: Hey, Rory, thank you very much for your answers! Very informative!

R: Oh, my.

M: So yeah, information. We trust information, we don't trust it. And remember that information is. And it is, like reliable, or unreliable. We give information to others. And an interesting question is about professions. Rory, you gave an example of being a janitor. Who is a janitor?

R: A janitor is the person that's responsible for the maintenance of a building or its general upkeep. I should point out, I said, being a janitor was a simple job. What I should have said is, I don't mean to say it's easy. It's just, it's got very straightforward procedures in my imagining.

M: And if we speak about giving information, we can say that people pass on information to other people. So we give information or we pass it on. So we pass things on to somebody else. It's word of mouth. Yeah? So we use our mouth. So by word of mouth. And if we think about other professions, so maybe politicians, journalists, they pass on a lot of information to each other. Journalists, politicians, who else? Perhaps TV presenters?

R: Those are the big ones that stand out. But doesn't everybody pass on information at some point as part of their job?

M: Yeah, I think so. Even like a janitor, like a cleaner, a person who cleans the room, building, they say, okay, I have cleaned this room. Could you give me some more? I don't know...

R: Money.

M: Yeah, money or cleaning equipment. So yeah, or this needs to be cleaned. So we pass on information. And also we convey information. So if we convey information, what happens?

R: It's the same idea. It's the idea that information goes from one person to the next. I suppose, if you convey information, it's a longer process, but the general idea remains the same. It's this idea of sharing information. It moving from one place to the next.

M: Yeah. And could you give us another example with convey?

R: Yes, it's important to convey information clearly. Yeah, that's maybe the best way of describing it. Convey describes the process, whereas passing on describes just the idea of moving one thing to the next. Because you convey information clearly. But you don't pass on information clearly. You just pass it on.

M: Yeah. So I have this piece of information, I just pass it on to Rory. I just tell this to Rory.

R: But if I don't understand...

M: Yeah, if Rory doesn't understand what I told him.

R: Then she didn't convey the information clearly.

M: I didn't convey this information clearly. So convey - express a thought, or a feeling or idea. And sometimes we say poetry... Poems, yeah? Poetry conveys a lot of information. Or like, I tried to convey this information in my speech, I tried to express this information.

R: Yeah.

M: We provide information, we give information by phone, or by email. You can also say, like, I talk on the phone, but we communicate by email. Okay? Prepositions, dear listener. And if we talk with somebody on the phone, or by phone, it's more live. So kind of live, it's like, online. Yeah? Happening right here, right now. So it has an instant response. So you say something, and usually, the person responds right away. So we have an instant response. Whereas, while, but if we communicate by email, or via email, communicate via email, we have this waiting time. You wrote an email, and then it takes three weeks for Rory to respond. Yeah?

R: It does not, though. Usually.

M: Yeah, Rory is quite good at responding. He's just... His like Instagram messages. Yeah. He's very quick with that. So you can say like there is some waiting time, and we have a distant reader. So you write an email, and the reader is somewhere there, like far away. A distant reader.

R: Is that a technical term?

M: I think so. Yeah. A distant reader.

R: That's awesome. I've never heard that before. That's so cool.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we can plan it out. So you plan out what you want to say when you write. Well, you can plan it out when you speak via the phone, by phone, but usually, it's kind of, it's more spontaneous.

R: Oh, yeah.

M: You call somebody and then you kind of like you decide on the spur of the moment. Like right now.

R: That's the word I was looking for. Spontaneous. Like there's more spontaneity in live conversations on the phone.

M: There is more spontaneity. It's more spontaneous. And Rory, what's this person who you call interlocutor?

R: Isn't that just a fancy word for the person that you're talking to?

M: Hmm, I thought it's like it's used only in exams like, oh...

R: Well, that's such a good point. Because I'd only heard it in the exam context before either. But actually, an interlocutor is just a person who's part of the conversation.

M: Hmm, okay. Yeah, so like a person you're talking to. What do you call it? Him or her.

R: The interlocutor. But most people say the person I'm talking to.

M: Yeah, the person I'm talking to. Yeah, your friend. The person you are talking to. Yeah, the information could be correct or not correct. And if you use a, then a piece of information or some information is correct or not correct. Reliable or unreliable? How do we check this? Correct or not correct? Rory used a very good verb, verify. And also, the examiner could ask you "how can you verify the information?". So verify is to say if it's true, or if it's not true? Like we verify facts? Yeah?

R: Yes, verify facts, verify information. Although I think verify facts is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it? Because if something is a fact, then it's true. But of course, factors come to mean just something that somebody says, but that's not what that is. That's a statement. Those are two different things. But statement checker does not sound as catchy.

M: Yeah. So to verify is C-1. Advanced, an advanced verb, dear listener. Okay? So to prove that something is true, to make certain it's correct.

R: How do you find that out?

M: Cambridge online dictionary.

R: Are they paying us to advertise?

M: No, but it's cool. It's cool. So for example, I can verify a theory, I can verify a report. Just to make sure that it's true. And it's nice to say that information can be verified with a Google search. Or it could be verified with some fact-checking websites, or encyclopedia, dear listener. Right? Especially with dates, names, just open an encyclopedia.

R: I don't know why I said encyclopedia. I think it's just because I was just looking at one. But I think most people don't check an encyclopedia. What else do people check?

M: But if you kind of verify certain information about, I don't know, biology or astronomy, you need facts. And where do you find facts? Well, Encyclopedia. I think if you want to be really certain you would go online, you would do a Google search, but then you do need some other sources. Like you said, paper-based sources. Encyclopedia?

R: That's because I couldn't think of the word newspaper.

M: No, but again, newspapers, like people write newspapers, they might make mistakes, you know, journalists, so... Paper-based sources, encyclopedias, and reference sources, you said. What are reference resources or sources

R: Well, an encyclopedia is an example of a reference resource. Really, it's something you refer to. Although I was thinking about it there and I think probably most people refer to other people before they actually do anything. I'm thinking about every time someone wants to find the transcripts for our episodes. They always ask either you or me or they get in touch with Vanya, like at our email. So yeah. But of course, it's easy enough to Google.

M: Yeah. So reference sources, like dictionaries, encyclopedias, right? So pretty much like books with facts. We can trust information online, we may not trust this information. And Rory told us that these days people are waking up to things like fake news. So people are waking up to something. So they're starting to realize that actually, something may not be true, especially news. So this was this word of the year. Fake news.

R: Was that the word of the year?

M: I think it was the word of the year like last year or two years ago. But yeah, quite recently. Fake news. Well, pretty much like fake news, false, misleading information. Another synonym for kind of like fake information, misleading information, information, which is wrong, which misleads you. Lies and propaganda. Okay? And fake news is negative, because this type of news aims at damaging the reputation of a person or somebody so it's negative.

R: Oh, okay.

M: What did you mean by skewed perspectives?

R: Well, a perspective is just how you see things. So if your perspective is skewed, then you're seeing things in a particular way. That's not necessarily how it should be seen, because you're seeing it perhaps how you would like it to be seen, rather than how it actually is.

M: Yeah, so skewed, not accurate, not exact. For example, my worldview is a little skewed. So my view is not exact, is not accurate, not correct.

R: Well, everybody's is a little bit.

M: And here, people are waking up to things like skewed perspectives, to things like fake news, misleading information, right? So skewed perspectives of other people. And you've used this word cognizant.

R: Cognizant.

M: Cognizant. Oh my gosh. What on earth is this one?

R: Cognizant is just to have knowledge or awareness about something. So I suppose we could say that because it's cognizant of something, and aware of something. But I think Cognizant particularly focuses on the idea of thinking about something whereas you can be aware of something and it doesn't involve thinking it could involve your senses as well. And the feeling.

M: Yeah. Cognizant. Dear listener, cognizant is like cognitive. It's kind of about thinking. So cognitive, it's very formal, well, you can see from the word, cognizance. Band 9, band 10.

R: It's so easy to say. So kind of cognizance, understanding or realizing something. So for example, I am cognizant of the fact that like everybody complaints. Or people must be cognizant of the political boundaries. You see? Context is very formal. So people must understand, must be aware of, must be cognizant of. Dear listener, wow. And people are becoming increasingly cognizant of fake news. So pretty much people understand and are aware of fake news, beautiful. Cognizant is the key of this episode, is the keyword, is the word of the day for you.

R: That is our word of the day. We should start doing that as part of our podcast. Just like do words of the day.

M: Yeah. Could you give us just the final example with cognizant?

R: Oh, people are increasingly cognizant of the fact that good mental health is as important as good physical health.

M: Yeah. And we can say that now people understand more about information than they used to in the past, right? And people are trusting. So people trust certain information, people are trusting. Did you say people are more weary of? Or did you say like aware of? So weary or aware of?

R: Oh, not weary, but wary. But being wary of something, it's like aware. But it's a specific kind of awareness, where it's about being aware of negative things. Or possible negative things, so you can be wary of a person because you understand that they might be a threat to you.

M: Wary, dear listener. It's C-2. Proficiency. So now we have cognizant, we have wary. It's not aware, it's not weary, it's... How do you pronounce it?

R: Wary.

M: Wary. Wary, it's kind of like similar to wear, but not really, wear clothes. So not completely trusting. When you are not certain about something or someone. For example, I'm a little wary of something or about, I'm a little wary about giving people my address. So kind of I don't trust it, I'm not certain, it's a good idea. Right? Could you give us some more examples with this?

R: Of wary?

M: Yeah, a strange one.

R: It's important to be wary of predatory advertising practices.

M: Or, for example, when you buy something, you should be wary of hidden costs, or some extra costs that they don't tell you about, you know? We verify the accuracy of information. So if information is correct, it's accurate. The accuracy of information, how the information is correct. So how do we verify it? Actually, Rory told us before. So using fact-checking websites, encyclopedias, and then you said that some people do have a political bias.

R: But that's just another example of the skewed perspective we were talking about before. If you have a political bias, it means that you, you're for or against something, and it's made clear from your reporting how you feel about it. And that influences how people understand it.

M: So if I'm biased, or I have some bias about IELTS assessment or about speaking, IELTS speaking, and I think, like, personally, I think that it's impossible to get band nine for speaking. So because I have this view, right? My personal opinion. I'm going to translate it to you, dear listener. I will say like, oh, no, nobody gets a nine for speaking. Oh, no, no, it's impossible. No, nine is no, no.

R: You got a nine.

M: Well, but shush, shush. It's an example. Come on.

R: Okay.

M: So you see? So because I have this view, my personal opinion, it influences on how I talk to you. But yeah, I believe that it's possible. Of course, it's possible to have a nine, I got a nine for speaking. So come on. Rory will get 8 or 8.5...

R: I got 8.5.

M: Did you?

R: Before I even started teaching IELTS. That doesn't count.

M: Oh, yeah. But good result, yeah?

R: Yeah.

M: So bias is also C-2, it's proficiency. It's a proficient word. So when a particular person acts in an unfair way, because of their personal opinions, and usually, we talk about political bias. Could you give us another example with bias?

R: Well, all news media is rife with political bias, because of course, it will favour the viewpoints of the people that fund them, and who they support politically.

M: And do we use an article? Is it a bias or bias?

R: I think, in general, it's without. However, I think we could talk about a specific case of bias.

M: A strong bias.

R: A strong bias for... Yeah, but that's using it as a specific example. And I suppose, in IELTS speaking part three we're supposed to be talking in general.

M: And information could overlap with something. And how do we verify, how do we check the accuracy of information? Check different sources and see if you have the same information in different sources. So we can check that this information overlaps with what you read here with what you heard here. So it overlaps? It's the same. Then there was this question about people are likely to believe true or false information. So if we believe, like fake news or true information, and Rory gets kind of this strange answer.

R: You didn't seem very happy with my answer about that.

M: No, no, because you kind of, you kind of, you said like, oh, it has been, it hasn't changed much. I didn't ask you about the past, I asked you about like, what do people believe more true or false information?

R: Well, you said these days. But what I was meaning is like, I think it's always been the case that it's been a pretty balanced affair. I don't think things have changed recently.

M: Ah, I see. Okay.

R: But yes, you were quite right. It's an unusual question. So you're right not to be happy with my original answer.

M: Yeah. So careful, dear listener. So do people believe true or false information these days? So yeah, you can compare it to the past, like in the past, people used to believe everything. But now something has changed. Or people haven't changed much compared to the past. And then present perfect. There have been cases of mass hysteria. What did you mean by mass hysteria? Like, people believing like everything or?

R: It's difficult to describe, but the basic concept is, it's when many people go insane, basically. And so, for example, there are lots of cases in history of this. Some people look to... I think there was a village in France 500 years ago, where people started dancing. And they would dance until they were dead. And many people started like, it started with one person, and everybody started doing it. And it was just like, everyone went nuts, basically. And they lost control of their ability to reason because of course, normally, you wouldn't dance until you were dead. Another one is, in the 1990s in America, there was something called the Satanic Panic, which is when lots of people started believing that there were like satanic cults in schools that were harming children. And they would come up with these like outlandish stories, like seeing demons and things like that. But none of this was real. None of this was happening. It was just because lots and lots of people believed it that it had this effect on people. It was crazy. That's just two examples, though. It's lots of people going nuts at the same time for the same reason.

M: Yeah. So hysteria, extreme fear, excitement, anger, and you can't control it, people. So mass hysteria, lots of people getting frayed or excited or angry. And this cannot be controlled. It's like... Like everybody goes like this. Yeah?

R: It's very interesting. I love psychology. I think it's so interesting how it happens to people.

M: What did you mean by witch hunts?

R: Well, actually, witch hunts are an example of mass hysteria, or they can be. A witch hunt is when... It's like an organized effort to find some specific people who are labelled as evil doers. So for example, I think in the 1950s, in America, there was this big thing about hunting for communist spies. And everybody was accusing everybody else of being a communist spy. And lots of people lost their jobs because they wanted to... They were on a mission to find these people. And that is, well, as you can imagine, wrong because lots of people were very innocent, and that they lost their careers. And that wasn't great. There's a great example, Arthur Miller, who wrote my favourite play, The Crucible. He published lots of things about... It's a book play about witch hunts, a real one, where they killed people. And he lost his... He was criticized because he was against this idea of the witch hunt against potential communists. So it happened to him, and he was writing about it in his play.

M: Wow. Also, if you don't know the answer, you can just use the strategy that Rory used. Like, oh, to be honest with you, I don't know. It's hard to say, yeah? But you say something, and then you just... I don't know. It's hard to say. And that's fine. The examiner will ask you another question. So it's possible not to answer one question. You just say, you say, I don't know. You know, it's a hard one. Really, I have no idea.

R: Well, it is difficult. I don't know anything about that subject. I don't know how people measure it.

M: Like what's true, what's false. And the safest one is just like people believe what's true to them.

R: Well, they do. Like that's... What was it? David Hume said that human beings are... What was it? Reason is a slave to passion or emotion. And, so it just means that people are controlled by their emotions and their feelings about things rather than by their brain, thinking logically.

M: The intricacies of something. So intricacy... Like intricacies - complicated details. For example, I can't understand all the intricacies of this plot. So the intricacies. And you said it about information from television. So from TV, we can get this, the intricacies of what we're talking about? Of family life?

R: It was the intricacies of how housewives in New York live. There's a TV series called The Real Housewives of New York, I think. And that's all about, well, I don't watch it. But I've seen clips a bit. And it's all about these women who are socialites, they're very high up in the social order, and the drama of their lives. So you find out the intricacies of this. It's the little details about how they interact with each other. And if you think that sounds completely insane, then it's because it probably is. I don't understand why people are drawn. Well, I do know why people are drawn to this, but it's weird. Have you heard of this before?

M: No.

R: It's like reality TV.

M: Yeah, I don't watch television. So...

R: I don't watch it either.

M: Yeah, so the intricacies. The intricacies of their lives. So the complicated details. Misinformation for our society means that people are less trusting, so we don't trust much, right? And society is more rigid. Rigid meaning?

R: It's not flexible. People do as they are told, or they follow instructions, they don't deviate, because they might get in trouble. So it's very rigid, everyone is in their place.

M: And people seek out information that conforms more or less to their world. So they seek out? They look for information, they want to find information, and to conform. Information that conforms to their views or to their, I don't know, opinions about the world is pretty much like information is according to the usual standards, according to their behaviour, according to their opinions. Conform is quite negative actually. About critical thinking, Rory told us that awareness of critical thinking could be raised. So raised, not rise. Raised, so we raise it, we improve it.

R: Well, if a person is involved, then it's raised, right?

M: If a person is involved? What do you mean?

R: Yeah, it's the difference between rise and raise. Raise is done by someone, whereas rise is not.

M: Yes. Yeah, kind of the sun rises. But I raise my hand. I raise a question. But something rises, like prices rise, the sun rises.

R: Your salary might rise, but your boss makes the decision to raise it.

M: Ooh, your boss could raise your salary.

R: That's my way of asking Vanya if I can have a pay rise. And Maria too.

M: Sweet. Thank you very much for listening! Okay? Make sure you remember this... What was this word of the day?

R: Cognizant.

M: People are cognizant of fake news.

R: I'm cognizant of the fact that we're ending this episode just as we started asking for a pay rise. I'm sure that's not a coincidence.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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