Evaluation of Social Media Sources

https://storify.com

Credibility: If one Googles "James McIntosh," he can find that McIntosh once worked as a doctor for the British National Health Service. He currently writes for Medical News Today, which qualifies him to make the post.

Location: The author is not directly involved nor at the location of the research in the controversy; rather, he writes about particular discoveries and research topics in the medical world.

Network: Some of his fellow writers from Medical News Today and other biological/clinical organizations follow him, furthering establishing his credibility.

Content: Their content can be corroborated by other sources. For instance, one of his articles contains information from the Journal of the American Medical Association and other related medical journals.

Contextual Updates: He does not regularly post about this subject; he diversifies his writings from dentistry to anesthesiology to neurology and beyond.

Age: The age of his Twitter and Google+ accounts is unknown; he did not reveal that information in his sites.

Reliability: The information is reliable since it draws from authoritative medical journals and from McIntosh's own expertise in the field.

Annotation (for pictured article): The author relayed some information from the Journal of the American Medical Association that claimed that BPA can cause asthma for children. McIntosh appropriates statistics that the journal provided and also used a quotation that declared the need for more research before this claim is deemed legitimate, bringing up questions that could invalidate JAMA's information. The purpose of the article was to highlight some more problems that BPA can cause children and to encourage parents to stay away from BPA. Once again, I can use this article to further build up a case to get rid of BPA in dental sealants.

https://storify.com

Credibility: ScienceDaily, the organization that posted the article, is focused on reporting the latest research news. In this pictured case, ScienceDaily reprinted a report from the University of Calgary. Its website and social media sites can be easily found by simply Googling its name.

Location: The organization was not at the location of the research nor was directly involved in it.

Network: Some of the organization's followers include the OSHA Brain Institute and UK Neuroscience, both of which are influential in the clinical world.

Content: ScienceDaily's information can be corroborated with other sources such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Human Evolution, the University of Calgary, the University of Melbourne, and even other foreign research groups.

Contextual Updates: The website does have links relating to BPA and delves deeper into BPA's side effects, including how it affects heart rate and hormone activity; but studies in BPA and dentistry are not the organization's primary focus.

Age: The organization has been on Twitter since January 2009.

Reliability: The information is indeed reliable.

Annotation (for pictured article): The author discloses information developed from experiments conducted by the University of Calgary involving BPA, BPS, and zebrafish and suggests the supposition stating that BPS can be just as potentially devastating as BPA. The author paraphrases most of his information from UCalgary's report and quotes from Deborah Kurrasch, the head of the laboratory conducting the research; Hamid Habibi, a researcher; and Cassandra Kinch, another researcher. The purpose of the article was to inform the people that BPS, a substance found in BPA-free materials, has similar side effects to BPA, as shown by the data revealing that zebrafish became hyperactive from exposure to both BPA and BPS. I can use this article to make a solid claim that BPA substitutes can be just as harmful as BPA and thus need to also be taken into consideration when one uses such materials.