Monday, February 1, 2010

Crap Detection 101, Erik Nelson

Looking at Howard Rheingold's article Crap Detection 101, I will analyze to see how his work stands up to the method he teaches.

Currency - June 30 2009 at 03:12 PM was the date and time this article was posted. At seven months old, this article is quite dated. Regarding the information within the article, it is still current enough to remain useful.

Reliability - Within the article, the majority of information is tips thought of by the author. There are a few quotes from other sources, but they seem to back up the central point that Rheingold is trying to make. At the bottom of the article is a long list of resources with related pages to help users.

Authority - Crap Detection 101 was written by Howard Rheingold. He has also written three books, as well as being involved in numerous technology and communication publications and websites. He has also taught digital journalism and social media. Rheingold appears to be very knowledgeable in communications on the internet. The publishing site does not affiliate with blogs on their site and they state that the author is responsible for its content. The site does have advertisements.

Purpose/Point of View - The content in the article is coming from a biased view that the internet is filled with thieves and scoundrels that only intend to do users harm. It seems that Rheingold only really wants to educate people about the information available to them however, and he is not trying to sell any product to readers.

Overall, I'd recommend this article to others because it passes its own CRAP test and provides knowledgeable insight into the online world that can benefit many people who haven't yet adapted to the land of the internet.

Image from rheingold.com

1 comment:

  1. In the sentence: "He has also written three books, as well as being involved in numerous technology and communication publications and websites," it might be better to say, "he has also written three other books."

    Try not to start two consecutive sentences the same way. In the Authority section, you started with, "He has also." You could trim the second one to "additionally."

    Lastly, try to eliminate the word "that" whenever you can. Trust me, you often can get rid of it.

    Love,
    Tyler

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