In-class Exercise

This website does not seem reliable. A lot of the posts are posted by authors such as “guest”. These articles do not include references. In addition, the information seems outdated. Underneath the ecology today section a lot of the articles are over two years old. The group that runs the page- Ecology Communications Group does not have very much of an online presence outside of the website. The website seems largely unmaintained, many posts are from several years ago. Additionally, there are no featured articles and many links on the website go to blank pages.

For this assignment we investigated the accuracy and reliability of an encyclopedia britannica article about ecology. To determine the trustworthiness of the site we first looked at the authorship of the article. The article was authored mainly by two seperate professors, Robert Leo Smith a professor of wildlife biology and ecology from the university of West Virginia and Stuart L. Pimm a professor of conservation ecology from Duke University. While these two authors seem reliability upon further investigation of the article it was discovered that several other authors contributed alongside these professors. These other contributors typically had no other credentials besides ambiguous titles such as “information analyst”, casting doubt upon the accuracy of the article. Alongside this issue of authorship there were few to no references to outside works, such as research or review papers. I would trust this article as much as I would trust a wikipedia page, as there is validity to many of their statements yet authorship is questionable.

This website does not appear to be from a University, but is from a scientific journal called "Cell Press." It has advertisements for the website and you can get a subscription and link it to your social media. It has many different articles and 31 different volumes and appears to have a pretty significant following, indicating that it is a valid site trusted by many people and that the articles have a lot of work and fine tuning put into them. It has a section labeled "Popular Articles." They also have a tab with job offers like "editor in chief" and "lead editor" that you can apply for yourself, which also indicates that they are probably legitimate.

The website we looked at was Sciencemag.org, which we know as a credible site for publications in scientific fields. First and foremost, the ".org" in the URL indicates that the site is run by an organization. Generlly, this also implies that this site is non-profit, but not always. The tabs in the top contained a section specifically for journals published through Science, and journals are the main hub for cutting-edge research. A direct quote from their About Us section: " Today, Science continues to publish the very best in research across the sciences, with articles that consistently rank among the most cited in the world". With this in mind, Sciencemag.org is definitely a reliable and valid source for scientific literature; it acts as a gateway to a wide array of different journals and publications across the internet.

The website belongs to the scientific journal called CellPress. The website contains advertisements promoting the journal and you can purchase a subsciption, or link your social media account. There are 33 volumes of this journal, and the website contains sections that include the most recent articles, the most popular articles from the past 2 years, and articles from the current issue. The artile links bring you to an online version of the article where you can read, download, and share the document. They also have a section where you can apply for a job to work for CellPress. This website seems very valid due to all of these reasons, and I would trust the articles on this site to be factual and valid. My one red flag is that it is a .com site and not a .org or .edu. 

Our group's website was https://yournewswire.com. Upon first glance, this website appears to function like a reputable news source. However, there are a few aspects of this website that lead us to doubt its reliability, validity, and trustworthiness. At the top of the page, it says "News. Truth. Unfiltered." This leads us to doubt its trustworthiness since the website feels the need to explicitly state that it can be trusted. In our past experiences, reliable news sources allow the validity of the articles to speak for themselves, contributing to their trustworthiness. A lot of the titles of the articles seem far-fetched, which instills some doubt in how valid the articles truly are. For example, "Dalai Lama Says Europe Belongs to Europeans; Migrants Should Return Home" is one of the articles showcased on the website. It is written by Baxter Dmitry, and it seems like a lot of the articles are written like blog posts. Some of the same authors show up but it is unclear as to who they actually are, which decreases its validity. There is also a tab on the main page of the website that allows visitors to inquire about advertising, which seems to suggest that the website values commercializing the news over providing valid and reliable information for readers. The authors and editors of the website also make numerous spelling and grammar errors, and images used are cartoonish. All of the factors above lead us to question the trustworthiness, validity, and reliability of this news source.

reliability, validity, trustworthiness.

Google itself is not a reference. It should not be cited nor used as a credible delivery service of information. However, it does serve as a resource to provide reputable information. The problem is that it can also provide incorrect information or non accredited sources. It is necessary to individually vet each source of information from whatever source is providing it. Google does not provide information, it only provides sources that it programmatically thinks will be relevant and/or credible.

Our source is from Wikipedia. We believe that one shouldn't always believe Wikipedia because anyone can edit or revise the information posted. Although there are sources, the information might not always be correctly portrayed. Some of the long passages only have a couple sources and these soures might not be enough to make the paragraph completely reliable. There are diagrams and images that seem to give the website more credibility from looking at it; however, these are just images most likely taken from Google. On a positivie note, it is helpful that there are links to vocabulary words so that the reader can comprehend the passage. 

Spider is active until plastic container is laid still. Within a couple seconds, the spider begins moving along the edge of the container, perhaps in attempt to free itself. The spider is light gray, almost transparent in color. It’s legs are much longer than its body. When the spider moves, it walks on 4 legs, using the middle four almost as eyes, meaning they touch everything before the spider moves. Its legs are divided into three sections, all bent at different angles to aid the spider in holding itself upside down on the lid of the container. The spider has 2 big eyes that are a dirty white in color, so they are lighter than the rest of its body, but also look transparent. The greater part of its body is a mix between a light gray and brown color. The legs are coming out of the top of the body, thus exposing the lower portion of the spiders abdomen. The legs are very long. The spider itself is about the size of a quarter.