Alkaline water has become a “health trend” here in the US. What is it? Is it good for you? Is it worth the extra cost over plain tap water? Let’s use our new scientific way of thinking to determine for ourselves if it is risky or beneficial. This assignment is not a Research Paper, but you will have to be a “Google Researcher” to come up with your personal determination. So how to be a good Google Researcher? DON’T TRUST EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET is rule #1. The source is going to be the biggest determinant if you should trust the information. Is the website you are getting the information from trying to sale you something? An alkaline water company website is not going to give you unbiased information on their products. Other commercial (.com) based websites rely heavily on advertisements to make money, and so their articles may seem to be independent opinions, but they may be biased by their advertisers. Better sources of unbiased information are government (.gov) agencies (National Institute of Health NIH; Center for Disease Control CDC; World Health Organization WHO; Food and Drug Administration FDA). These agencies have many times already scoured the 1,000s of available research articles and come up with an easy to understand review of key points. There can be trustworthy organizations (.org) websites, but you have to be careful here. Some well known organizations like American Cancer Society (cancer.org), or American Medical Association (ama-assn.org) could be good sources, but anyone can buy a domain name. If I was so inclined I could buy the SmartestWomanAlive.org domain and fill it full of fake research on how I’m the smartest woman alive. You can also rely on some news sites but a reliable news site should ALWAYS CITE THEIR CLAIMS (rule #2 of internet searching). You should be able to see where the author has gotten this information through either embedded links or a resource cited at the end of the page. If there is no way for me to verify what the author is saying, I have to just trust them and that isn’t good research or science. Scientists are an untrusting bunch always asking questions. If you feel very adventurous you can see what the actual scientific experiments have to say. Easy ways to find peer-reviewed research experiments on a subject are by using Scholar.Google.com (Links to an external site.), PubMed (Links to an external site.), or our own CSN Library (Links to an external site.). Words of caution here, these articles are the REAL DEAL and can be very hard to read. It takes practice to get used to reading scientific articles. Also each of these articles are just the starting points of further research. Remember how we derive theories? LOTS of research has to come together to make an established theory. One research article alone saying chocolate will make you loose weight should not make you go on an all-chocolate diet. Review articles can be your friend here. A review article is still considered a peer reviewed research article, but instead of looking at just a couple of experiments, they look at all available research for a subject and come up with a review of what the current research says. If you decide to dive into the deep end of peer reviewed research articles, I’m always here to help, but it is not necessary for this assignment.
For this Alkaline Water assignment:
Define what alkaline water is
What are some of the claims made by alkaline water selling companies?
Are these claims backed by unbiased research?
From your research what are the real benefits/risks (if any) of alkaline water?
Include citations on where you got your information
You will be graded on how reliable the source is
Don’t worry about proper APA or MLA etc formats. Just make sure to include a working link to the website where you got the information
Your best friend (of normal health) asks if they should be buying alkaline water. What would you tell them?
