This is an article I chose from The New York Times.
Post-Transplant and Off Drugs, H.I.V. Patients Are Apparently Virus-Free
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/health/post-transplant-and-off-drugs-hiv-patients-are-apparently-virus-free.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp
As I was looking over this article and comparing it to the Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources, I felt that the content that was in the article was very newsworthy and credible. This is what I found.
- It is evident that the author Donald McNeil Jr. is well established in the field. He is a science and health reporter who specializes in plagues and pestilences. He covers diseases of the world's poor, AIDS, malaria, SARS, and Mad Cow disease. In this article, McNeil writes about a certain H.I.V. infected person who suddenly has no trace of it within his system.
- McNeil doesn't come off as biased on the matter, he simply is reporting from what he has found out. He uses several participant sources who are the doctors working on the patient who was cleansed of the H.I.V. infection. I did some further checking of the doctors he used as sources and found other articles about them dealing with the situation.
- Another positive, is that this article is relevant and current. This article was only published today, July 3rd 2013. The on-going battle against H.I.V. and AIDS has been going on for many years. This is very relevant information as scientists and doctors have been trying to figure out a cure from the beginning.
- This author has other published articles online.
- The New York Times has been known to be very credible and very well rounded resource for information.
Overall, I found the articles sources very convincing after doing some digging. It is all about doing the research, even if it means going through the backgrounds of the author and the article's sources.
Cody,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you did a great job of researching the article's sources. The article I chose was also more science based and when reading your blog I had an idea: do you think that scientific articles are easier to trust simply because of their focus?
I know that personally I question scientific articles much less than I do any pieces that have a focus in politics or crime. Now, could this just be me being naive and putting too much trust into scientific journalists? Sure. But I feel that the scientific community as a whole is founded on research and facts, so they automatically earn reliability points from me.
I'm just wondering what your thoughts are.
Best,
Lexie
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCody,
ReplyDeleteI have heard of that happening before, where an HIV positive person all of the sudden is no longer. I first learned of this in an undergraduate biology course. My instructor said they were looking to find what caused this and try to duplicate it to cure AIDS. If I remember correctly I think it was some sort of mutation. It sounds like you did some great research in discovering the author and his credentials, did you delve into the sources he used in a similar way?
Lexie,
I think scientific articles should be challenged for that very reason. I think a lot of times it is assumed that readers will believe what is being said in these types of articles for the mere fact that the verbiage is more difficult to interpret and we must cross reference hard facts.
Thanks,
Ali