Skip to Main Content

PHI1050 Yeakel

Irving's Text

Find Washington Irving's A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, Volume 1 by clicking here.

Confirmation Bias

It can be challenging to find an authoritative source for an definition or explanation of a complex topic. The library has many scholarly reference books and other resources available online that can help with that task.

You might try searching "confirmation bias" in the following library resources (Note: Search "confirmation bias" with the quotes, to keep these two words together as a phrase when searching.)

  • Summon
    • To find more entries, from your search results, select More under Content Type on the left menu. Click on Reference, then select Apply at the top of the list.
    • Notice how the definition changes slightly with the field of study.
  • Oxford Reference resources.
  • Gale Virtual Reference Library. Although there are no direct instances/entries for confirmation bias, you may find useful information in some of the results. Once you've clicked the title of the result you'd like to read, you can find where confirmation bias is discussed by finding/searching (CTRL + F) for confirmation or confirmation bias within the article. Take advantage of the searching features within electronic resources and save yourself time!

With this information, and having read Chapter V of Irving's text, you can begin to think about whether Irving has established that Columbus committed this mistake in his reasoning.