The website I chose to review was ScienceDaily. The first thing noticed when the page loads is a ton of information, text, and links which can be a little overwhelming to a first time visitor. The site is full of stories, articles, ideas, and research relevant to the scientific world. Beneath the organized header sorting the articles by topic is "Today's Science News, Wednesday, October 8th, 2014" and directly beneath that, "Featured Research" on the left and "from universities, journals, and other organizations" on the right. It is clear from the very top that this site has credible information and plans to cite all of their information, the url domain .com, is not very relevant to the credibility.
ScienceDaily's editors are Dan & Michele Hogan. They started the site in 1995 and still operate it today. These folks are passionate about their content and readers and welcome feedback with an address and contact information easily accessible. Their statement "with over 65,000 research articles, 15,000 images, 2,500 encyclopedia entries, 1,500 book reviews, and hundreds of educational videos, there is something for everyone on ScienceDaily (About Science Daily)." showcases their pride in the content credibility of the website. Dan & Michele are not the only people working hard on this source of knowledge, there are over 2,000 contributing organizations worldwide (Editorial Staff) writing articles describing new scientific breakthroughs, research, and news. Every image, story, article, and statistic is sourced in all APA, MLA, and Chicago formats at the end of each entry.
The website is updated on a daily basis, hence the name, ScienceDaily. The copyright is also up to date of the current year, 2014. All material is given on three levels of detail. The first level of detail, a brief headline linking to the article page. Second level of detail, a short article summary, generally 1-3 paragraphs in length for those who want the basic idea of the new research and in "lamens" terms. Last, the third level, the full article, which varies in length and includes images. Amidst the material are ads (because the browser I am using does not have ad-blocker), but they are not relevant to the content and not influential to me at all.
Overall, ScienceDaily seems to be a credible site and source for information. The sourcing to universities, journals, and organizations is admirable. I appreciate this site for promoting the importance of an un-biased approach to things that matter, but are often easily missed in a flurry of news headlines involving celebrity scandal, commercials, and political propaganda. This site is dedicated to bringing science to the internet community.
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Works Cited
"Editorial Staff", ScienceDaily <http://www.sciencedaily.com/staff.htm> 08 Oct 2014 Web.
Hogan, Dan & Michele. "About Science Daily", ScienceDaily <http://www.sciencedaily.com/about.htm> 08 Oct 2014 Web.
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