The Turnstone: talking about vaccines #25

Not all information is created equal (2 minute read)

Welcome to The Turnstone: talking about vaccines. Here, I share resources to help you have kind and non-judgemental conversations with people who are uncertain about, or opposed to, vaccination.

I send The Turnstone out every Sunday, alternating in-depth articles with “talking about vaccines” and “talking about climate change”. If you’d like The Turnstone emailed to you directly, you can sign up to my mailing list.

One of the challenges we face in our conversations about vaccines – or any complex topic – is dealing with the huge amount of information online. Websites make claim and counter-claim, and often it’s hard to know what is credible.

The resources shared here are aimed at helping you to improve your skills in evaluating online information – not just for vaccines but for other complex issues as well. They have certainly been useful to me.

Image credit: Thomas Lefebvre/ Unsplash

Overview

The following article gives some useful suggestions for how to tell whether science reported in the media is credible.

6 tips to help you detect fake science news (5 minute read)

The SIFT approach

The SIFT approach was developed by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield. He explains his approach in a series of short videos at the link below.

SIFT - The Four Moves (4 videos, 12 minutes in total)

For a more in-depth look, the following site has a free course with a range of resources, largely based on SIFT.

Check, Please! Starter Course (5 lessons, each around 30 minutes)

Medical evidence

The following article from writer and scientist Christie Hartman breaks down the different kinds of evidence on medical claims, and helps you understand why some claims are stronger than others.

The Evidence Hierarchy - The Rogue Scientist (9 minute read)

Traps for the unwary – pre-prints and predatory journals

If you are looking at scientific information online, there are two terms you should know – pre-print and predatory journal.

A preprint is a version of a scientific paper which hasn’t yet gone through the formal publication and peer-review process. Pre-prints are placed online by researchers because they allow them to share and discuss their findings quickly. But pre-prints need to be treated with considerable caution. The article below explains some of the issues.

Why “what is a preprint?” is the wrong question (7 minute read)

A predatory journal is a publication which looks like a reputable scientific or academic journal, but is not. Predatory journals make misleading claims, do not meet best practice for publication standards and lack transparency. They profit by charging researchers for accepting their papers, and are often aggressive in their marketing.

This article gives a good overview of the problem of predatory journals.

What is a Predatory Publisher? (3 minute read)

This article describes the issue in more depth

Predatory journals: no definition, no defence (9 minute read)

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