Evaluation of General Sources

My controversial topic in the field of neuroscience is how the company Lumosity advertised cognitive improvement with their "brain games". Researchers have found that these claims are not backed by actual science and do not prove any actual improvement. These findings led the Federal Trade Commission to charge Lumos Labs (the laboratory behind Lumosity) 2 million dollars.

This is the first online source I used to gain some background knowledge.
The url ends in .org. This indicates that the site is noncommercial. Having the organization be noncommercial indicates a more reliable source than a .com url. While this does not guarantee credibility, it is a good start.

The author of the article is Emily Underwood and a description of her background is provided with a hyperlink to her name. She has a masters degree in science writing from John Hopkins University and a bachelors degree in science and technology studies with a focus in neuroscience from Brown University.

The last time the page was updated was Oct. 22, 2014. While the article was dated over a year ago, as I researched more, I found the information matched other recent sources. The page also has multiple links, that work, showing specific examples including research papers and games talked about in the article.

The position of the subject and the purpose align with each other as the website seems to be to inform. With heavy evidence of research, the author aims to shed light on why Lumosity is being charged and the reasoning behind why the research was done in the first place. She does present a counter argument about how these brain training games work and that no brain game can actually be proven to improve cognition in daily life. While the science does not support Lumosity, she attempts to legally defend the company.

There is only one graphic on this page and it is of an elderly woman playing a game on a computer. This picture serves to illustrate the environment in which Lumosity takes place but does not seem to evoke an emotional response from the reader.

The next source is very credible.

The url ends in .gov. This is very promising because it means this website is part of the government. All information presented should be trusted and credible.

Assuming because this is a government website, there is no author available to look up. If this was not a government website, this would be alarming.

The last time this page was updated was Jan. 5, 2016. This is very recent and serves as a good sign that the information presented is accumulative, including all pieces of information.

The links present on the page largely include hyperlinks to many policies created by the FTC. This is used to further explain how Lumosity was in the wrong. All of the links are still working.

With all of these links, it is evident that this article's purpose is to inform the public, or as the FTC would say the "consumer". It is their job to make sure that the consumer is well informed about the products on the market, and that the companies selling the product are not falsely advertising. This puts the FTC in a very unbiased position. They do not care what the product is or who is involved, but rather that all of their policies are satisfied.

There are only two main graphics on this page, one being the logo for the FTC and one representing Lumosity's brand. They do not aim to persuade the reader, but rather illustrate the parties present.