The growth of the Internet has made data extraction widely accessible to the public.
The paradox of its accessibility and lack of regulation allows for speedy and widespread distribution of fictitious knowledge (Tonsaker, Bartlett & Tropkov, 2014). Addiction Blog, an educational health website authored by Lee Weber, is the chosen article for this critique as it pertains to the writer’s preceptorship. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate understanding of the vision of the article, discuss the strengths and limitations, and offer recommendations for improvement.
Based on the critique’s findings, Addiction Blog is deemed an unreliable source due to its lack of credibility. The claimed purpose of the website is to provide objective information concerning the appropriate treatments for those who are struggling with alcohol addiction. The intended audience are individuals who are literate in English with internet access seeking further information about the given topic. The content of the paper, presented into sections using paragraphs and bullet points, includes: description and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, treatment, and recommended route of alcohol cessation. The author presented the information in factual and objective manner.
Addiction Blog is accessible through Google search engine and the readers have the option of sharing the article on social media to enhance the dissemination of information (Harmsworth & Turpin, 2001). Addiction Blog excels in the succinct delivery of information by purposely accentuating the crucial information first. The content is partitioned into sections, making it easy to navigate and read, which is important for a web reader who tends to exhibit a shorter attention span (National Institute of Health, 2011). The website provides a variety of media to present the information, such as infographics, videos or Ebooks.
These different media cater to specific learning styles, which can enhance knowledge retention (Potter, Kerr, & Perry, 2014). To increase certitude, Addiction blog included a reference list that cites government-owned, credible sites such as PubMed and Medline (Mohta & Mohta, 2016). The article is hindered by its lack of credibility, use of unauthenticated references, and the use of perplexing language. According to Purdue Online Writing (2013), an article is deemed plausible when the author writes on a topic respected in their field of study.
Lee Weber is a Bachelor of Arts in English graduate and has been an Editor-In-Chief for journalism companies. As such, the author lacks credibility to write on alcohol addiction cases. In addition, the website enables any individual to submit and publish their manuscript regarding a health topic, given that it meets the inclusion criteria stated on the site. The article’s published reference list ranged from 1998-2017 which deems the information dated and unreliable. The absence of current systematic review could lead to misleading evidence which hinders informed decision-making (Tonsaker et al.
, 2014). Moreover, the language and demeanour of the article is unaccommodating to different levels of comprehension as it uses medical jargons and provides no further explanation (Lebrun, DiMuzio, Beauchamp, Reid & Hogan, 2013). Conclusively, the article is effective in educating its intended audience on alcohol addiction and catered to different styles of learning.
However, the weakness sprouted from lack of timely resources and creditable authors. As such, the recommendation to improve the article includes: (1) Utilizing recent evidence-based research and including in-text citations; (2) Reducing misinterpretation through simplification of language to the recommended sixth-grade readability level (Kher, Johnson & Griffith, 2017); (3) Executing and crediting an article review performed by an expert in the field of study.
