Week 3 Assignment- Background Information Search

Part One: Background Information from a Web Search

11. What is your research topic?
Ethnomedicine

2. Select an unfamiliar Search Engine or Metasearch Engine from the list linked in the lesson (http://www.philb.com/webse.htm) and run a search for your topic. DO NOT use Google or Wikipedia for this part of the assignment!

a.       Tell me which search engine or metasearch engine you used
My all Search

b.       What new ideas or information did you find about the topic?
Many encyclopedia/dictionary entries- also known commonly as traditional medicine.
Useful sources such as the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine and American Journal of Ethnomedicine webpage which have a variety of published articles, featured research etc.
You tube videos of online lectures on the topic of ethnomedicine.
There are many different kinds of ethnomedicine.

c.       What are some subtopics you read about in your search?
Ethnobotany, ethnobiology, herbalism, ethno-ecology, ethnopharmacology

d.       What possible research questions came up while you were reading?
What is the difference between ethnomedicine and western biomedicine?
Is biomedicine a type of ethnomedicine?
What are some specific examples of ethnomedicine?
Does the practice of ethnomedicine conflict with implementation of biomedicine in those places where biomedicine is also available?
Do people perceive their ethnomedical systems more effective than biomedicine?

e.       List words that might be used for future searches. Be sure to include and label at least one DISTINCTIVE term, one BROAD term, one NARROW term and one RELATED term
Broad Term= ethonomedicine
Narrow Term= Herbalism
Realted term= shamanism

Part Two: Evaluating a Website

1.       Search the web, select one website that relates to your topic, and give me the URL.
http://www.imedpub.com/ethnomedicine/

2.       Identify the website's domain, including the suffix (for example, .org or .net). What does that tell you about the website?
That it is a US commercial organization/ publisher

3.       Authority-
Peer reviewed bi-monthly scholarly journal for ethnomedicine and related topics.
There are no author names for the sight itself, author names for each article that is published and their credentials are provided. Good authority. 

Since it is an academic journal there is information on how to become an author and submit your articles for publishing, information for those people who are acting as editors and reviewers of the articles. Editor in Chief is Dr. K Karhu

Impact factor is listed as 0.94. Peer reviewed, open sourced journal active since 2014.

4.       Currency
Last Updated January 27, 2018
Copyright 2018
Yes it is sufficiently current for my topic

5.       Accuracy
The page is not making any claims in and of itself besides that ethnomedicine is worthy of study. For each of the articles presented for publishing there are very specific guidelines for citing the sources used and the peer review process helps ensure the information is accurate and updated with new findings as needed.

6.      Purpose
American Journal of Ethnomedicine is an open access, peer-reviewed, bimonthly, online journal that aims to promote the exchange of original knowledge and research in any area of ethnomedicine.

Looked up credentials for this journal on http://oaji.net/journal-detail.html?number=842

No biases easily detected. Studies are multidisciplinary and topics are very broad. Authors are from a multitude of different countries. Any conflicting opinions should be identified and addressed within each published article.

Part Three: Evaluating a Wikipedia Article

1.       After reading the article, answer the following:

a.       What is the title and URL (web address) of this Wikipedia article?
Ethnomedicine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomedicine)

b.       Judging by the introduction and table of contents, is this article well structured? Are any important aspects of the topic missing?
The article is relatively short and is certainly missing some other important sub-topics to help give the reader a better idea of the depth of ethnomedicine. There is only one subtopic included which is ethnopharmacology but this is just one of a whole bunch of subtopics.  I think including this subtopic without others could be misleading to the reader. I think that providing more examples of specific ethnomedical practices would be beneficial.

c.       Do you see any warning messages at the top of the article?
No

d.       Are facts and claims consistently referenced throughout the article?
There are a few good references cited for some of the material but there are places that citation is needed as well. It is more of a generally descriptive article than one that presents facts and data.

e.       Is the article written in a clear, readable manner, with appropriate use of illustrations?
What is available is clear and easily read with links to other Wikipedia entries for other related terms used in the article. One related illustration only, more would be nice.

f.        In the References list, do you think the number of references is appropriate to the content of the article? What types of sources are cited? In addition to the References or Notes, do you see External Links or Further Reading?
I think that more references should be provided. There is one book, and three scholarly journal articles. Several good external links and sources for further reading are provided but more should also be added here as well.

2.       Go to the article’s “Talk” page and tell me:
a.       What WikiProjects (if any) does this article belong to.
WikiProject Anthropology
WikiProject Alternative medicine
WikiProject Medicine
WikiProject Plants

b.       What rating has it been given on the Quality Scale (note that it may have several different ratings if it is part of several projects).
All ratings given are “start class”


c.       Based on your evaluation of the article, do you agree with this rating?
I agree with this rating. There is a good overview present however it needs more depth added, especially further sub-topics and disciplines and more citations to sources.

d.       Is there anything in the discussion on the article’s Talk page that causes concern or piques your interest, such as disputes between editors or comments on inaccuracies?
I found it interesting that there was a film linked that was removed that was about shamanism In South America which is a specific kind of ethnomedicine. Other than that, most of the things that were said in the discussion were similar to my evaluation. More sections and further information should be added. There was some information/citation provided by someone in the talk page that looked like it might be a good addition to the article itself somewhere. Maybe they were working on doing that?

3.       Go to the article’s View History page and tell me:
a.       Does anything concern you about the editing history for this article?
There is nothing very concerning about the editing history. Most of what was edited was discussed in the talk tab. There were many changes from the term “ethnopharmacy” to “ethnopharmacology” which I think is for the better.


Part Four: Reflect


I actually found this exercise very helpful and interesting. I was of the idea that Wikipedia was not the best source to use for academic research but it was a good starting place to find general information and further reading and links that were useful. I did not know about the talk page and will certainly be looking at that tab every time I read a Wikipedia article from now on to determine if there are any major disagreements about the content or see if there is content that people have left there but has not been added to the article yet. I also did not really know anything about the rating system. Looking for ratings will also be helpful in the future. 

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