Water, with a Grain of Salt

I recently led a short discussion in the Publications class wherein I encouraged the students to think more critically about the sources they find while reporting.

I presented them with a web page called “Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!” The introduction says:

“Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.”

The page then lists other deadly attributes of DHMO, and claims the chemical's concentration in the environment is reaching “epidemic proportions.”

After having the students read the text, I asked a simple question: “What's wrong with this source?” I encouraged them to use the Internet to help them figure it out.

One of the editors, recalling similar activities from the previous semester, asked about the web address. She knew that .com generally indicated a private for-profit site, .gov indicated a government site, and so forth.

She was right to check, but I told her that wasn't the problem. “It's an educational institution,” I pointed out, noting the .edu suffix.

Another editor chimed in with part of the answer. “It doesn't give the whole story,” he said. “It's a biased perspective.”

“You're right. Why is it biased?” I asked.

One of the Pub I students raised his hand. “It's biased because it's not telling you what DHMO is,” he said. “It's water.”

He was correct. DHMO is a rarely-used chemical name for water. The arcane terminology has been used since the 1990's as a hoax, a joke, and an educational tool to show people the dangers of uncritically accepting the first thing they read.

“One thing to notice about this website,” I said to the students, “is that everything on it is true. Water does kill a lot of people. But what's missing is the fact that it has many more benefits that far outweigh all the dangers listed here.”

So peaceful…

…and yet so potentially deadly.

Videos by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

 A vital part of being a successful journalist involves fostering a healthy skeptical outlook. The story of DHMO is demonstrative of how failing to vet one's sources can lead to some silly actions. I have written in the past on one of my other blogs about several officials and municipalities that took up a serious – but misled – campaign against the chemical.

The proliferation of online information has, if anything, increased the need for students to think more carefully about their sources. Common wisdom holds that so-called “digital natives” of the youngest generations are web-savvy and better informed. But some recent studies of how students use search tools and think about the material they find suggests that the ease of access has not necessarily translated into better research skills.

In 2010, for instance, researchers at Northwestern University published a study in the International Journal of Communication that showed students' most common method of evaluating the credibility of a website was whether it came up first in a search engine list.  Lead author and associate professor of communication studies Eszter Hargittai said in the university's press release that “a website’s layout or content almost didn’t even matter to the students. What mattered is that it was the number one result on Google."

The Internet can be a great tool, if you know how to use it. I believe that the two most valuable skills students should get from their educational experience are critical thinking and how to research. If you can do those two things, you can pursue any other avenue of knowledge on your own for the rest of your life.

Neither skill is taught as a course, so it is up to us to build those abilities as much as possible through activities like the DHMO discussion. The students will need the skills, not only to be successful reporters, but to become engaged and independent citizens.