Critiquing Internet Sources Essays Examples

The ability of proper information assess is infrequently met among students and average Internet users. Either because of the mentality or as the result of inattention the information perception has the lack of the critical element. The idea mentioned in the newspaper, magazine or book or on the radio or television is often considered to be more true than any of the data that should be at least compared with another sources. Meanwhile, the ability to critically evaluate and select information are the main skills while operating any materials or sources in nowadays powerful information society.

The Largest Source of Information

Considering the process of developing the informational society, mass communication plays a great role as a systematic information disseminator by different technical means like print, radio, television, film, sound and video recordings, etc. Internet is the most powerful data container which brings information due to the relatively high involvement of a wider audience. The Internet provides an unprecedented amount of information by way of blogs, videos, and podcasts.
Internet provides a number of tools and techniques that are not available on the paper, for instance, the non-linearity provided by hyperlinks allow readers to build their own movement trajectory through the text; interactivity gives the opportunity to comment on the existing material, correct or supplement the author’s ideas; multimedia text for more clearness and details contains inserted audio files, animated images and videos.

Considering Different Perspectives on the Issue of Obesity

Obesity is fat deposition, weight gain at the expense of adipose tissue. Currently, obesity is considered as a chronic metabolic disease; occur at any age, manifested by excessive weight gain mainly due to excessive accumulation of adipose tissue, accompanied by an increased incidence of morbidity and mortality in the general population.

Let’s consider the web-sources about obesity and critically analyze the provided information together with its applicability, validity and reliability.

Jamie Oliver (also known as James Trevor Oliver) is a famous English chef, restaurateur, author of popular books and television programs on topics of cooking, entrepreneur and social activist, active fighter for healthy eating and better food for education. He stared at TED conference giving a lecture on obesity. This is a 22 minute video considering the issue of obesity in America and the ways of avoiding it. He provides a good examined statistic data, trying to tell the audience that this issue is a critical nowadays health issue, which is frequently causing people to die. He believes that healthy eating habit can prevent this disease. Jamie also states that bad eating is the only reason of overweighting, but since he is not a professional physician or medic, he didn’t take into account the diseases that cause overweighting due to hormonal changes, lack of components, etc. This is an interesting lecture to hear from Oliver since in his cooking shows he cooks mostly high calorie foods.
“100 Ways to Fight Obesity” is a podcast on Freakonomics Radio. This podcast also provides a statistics on comparison of children and adult obesity. In addition, the radio team has made a research which revealed that the state’s spending on obesity-related healthcare are about 20% of GDP. They claim that that weight is often difficult to rise and hard to lose, which is not medically correct. These “100 Ways to Fight Obesity” did not include physical exercises, but providing ways to avoid high-energy food. This podcast mostly considers political and economic angles of obesity.
Obesity Panacea is a blog on www.blog.plos.org gives us the latest findings on sedentary behaviour and mortality. Namely sedentary behavior is considered to be the main reason of obesity. This blog is provided by Avi, a PhD candidate at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and Dr. Alter,a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences and research director of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute’s Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation program. This research spans across many disciplines including cardiovascular health services and outcomes, clinical epidemiology and social determinants. Both authors stipulate for active physical exercises to fight over obesity. But they also determine the right eating habit as a key element in getting rid of obesity.

The influence of Web-Based Information on Global Citizenship and Multicultural Understanding

Development of the World Wide Web influences a variety of areas of human activities. Nowadays the Internet together with its huge amount of data becomes an interactive tool for intercultural communication to explore the possibility increase and improve the quality of intercultural contacts. This mean of multicultural communication, on one hand, has a positive impact on the world community since it allows transmitting information anywhere in the world, helps to strengthen ties between people and countries that changes the style relations in modern society (Addis, R., & Cole, Pб 1994).
Development of the Internet makes it possible to raise the question of the possibility of intensive dissemination of culture, unity and integration of various audiences, bringing them to the achievements of the world culture. In this regard, cultural information in new ways and apply functions. There is a possibility equivalent and widespread dissemination and distribution of cultural and artistic values. From the perspective of cross-cultural communication, it allows to achieve maximum penetration of information on the Internet, i.e., each Internet user can not only publish their information, but also receive a feedback from readers, argue and discuss. On the other hand, it is worth notion the information contained in the Internet, and can have a negative impact on a person, especially for young users.

Evaluation of Internet Resources

During sources evaluation I consider authenticity as a basic requirement for any information. “Three sources rule” can be used while choosing a reference source: the information from the source should be confirmed by several (more than two) different sources. In addition, these sources must not cite each other (Barnet, S., & Cain, W., 2000).
The confidence rate is the higher, the more we believe in the qualification and knowledge of the author. In other words, considering a new article (eg., about certain historical events), it is necessary to find out who its author – is he a research scientist and science popularizer or a newspaper reporter, just certain lover of sensationalism.

References

Addis, R., & Cole, P. (1994). Source criticism. Bromsgrove: Abacus Educational Services.
Barnet, S., & Cain, W. (2000). A short guide to writing about literature (8th ed.). New York: Longman.
100 Ways to Fight Obesity: A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://freakonomics.com/2013/03/27/100-ways-to-fight-obesity-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
Jamie Oliver - TED Talk on Obesity and Food. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOPl8P2S-Lw
Obesity Panacea. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/