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The articles that I chose to compare are presenting new information about how glaciers, which were once thought to only be destructive to mountains, are now discovered to be only destructive to certain mountains and not all of them. New research has been revealed that states that glaciers are helpful for mountains in high-latitudes. Both articles, in the beginning, tell of this new research about helpful glaciers, but the amount of information and the way the information is presented varies between the two.
Right away, I noticed the difference in the titles. The secondary source articles' title just plainly said that "glaciers help high-latitude mountains grow taller" (ScienceDaily, 2010); compared to the primary article which says that "glaciers are both destructive and constructive to mountains" (Thomson, 2010). The secondary's title may lead people to believe that glaciers are now good for mountains and that they help all mountains, when really there's only a selected few that they do help, which is stated in the primary source. The secondary sources title may also make people believe that the glaciers themselves make the mountain grow taller, when really the glaciers help the mountains by not eroding them as they would on other mountains.
Both sources than go on to explain how scientists first believed that glaciers could only be destructive to mountains until a research team including, Stuart N. Thomson and his crew, studied the Andes Mountains in the southernmost region of South America. Here they found that glaciers were actually acting as amour for the mountains and that the mountains were growing rather than being eroded by the glaciers. The secondary article claims that this glacial protection is prevalent in all mountains which reside in colder climates, but by reading the primary acticle you know that it is, in fact, happening in the colder climates, yet not all mountains are being protected from the erosion.
The primary article then gives maps and scales showing exactly the effects of the glaciers and where exactly this glacial amouring is happening, whereas the secondary article just gives the general region of South America and has no exact numbers or locations. Glacial destruction is also mentioned in the scales and maps, but is not really mentioned in the secondary source. I believe this to be because the secondary source wants people to get a positive reading experience by reading that glaciers are found to be helpful rather than knowing that glaciers are still eroding mountains as global warming and other natural factors are causing them to retreat. In the secondary source there is only one picture available and it is a picture of a mountain with a glacier on it, which doesn't really show the readers anything, than you have the primary source that has detailed graphs, maps and scales that can tell a reader much more than a picture of a glacier on a mountain ever could.
My article's secondary source also seems to "dumb" down the words and phrases used for readers, seeing as most readers of the secondary article are not scientists or researchers who can understand the technical terms and lingo used in primary sources. Information is then changed for the general public and most information is then moulded to fit into the secondary source so everyone can understand, sometimes losing the true meanings and data.
The secondary source may also lead people to believe that the mountains in the cold climates that have glacial armour is protected from all erosion. However, the primary article will tell that, yes certain mountains do have this glacial armour, but only starting at a certain altitude. Below this altitude, erosion can still occur, which in the end, could still be destructive for the mountain.
Methods of how the researchers studied the mountains were available in both sources but varied in detail and general information. The secondary source explains, as simply as it can, how Thomson and his crew studied rocks from the mountains to determine the "cooling age" which would tell them how fast the rock is being eroded. They discovered that the rocks were cooling slowly meaning the mountains eroded slower; therefore the mountains had this glacial armour (ScienceDaily, 2010). In the primary article, the methods were described using a lot of scientific terms and numbers, and they referred to the rocks as grains and crystals (Thomson, 2010). The primary article didn't really allude to the fact that the mountains were eroding slower to the rocks "cooling age".
Probably the biggest claim that the secondary source makes it that climate is the ultimate factor that determines the size of the mountain range; stating that a mountain will either undergo glacial armouring or glacial buzzsaw (eroding) (ScienceDaily, 2010). While climate does play a big role in deciding mountain size, the primary article also explains other reasons for size changes, such as weather and the overall age of the mountain.
In conclusion, by reading the secondary and primary sources of the same article it would appear that the secondary source is made for the sole purpose of relaying complicated data into simpler terms for readers to be able to understand and be interested enough to keep reading until the end. The purpose of the primary source is to convey information to other people in that certain field and to explain their findings, and allow other researchers to be able to expand on their research.
References
Thomson, S. N., Brandon, M. T., Tomkin, J. H., Reiners, P. W., Vasquez, C., & Wilson, N. J. (2010). Glaciation as a destructive and constructive control on mountain building. In Nature. Retrieved September 19, 2010, from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7313/full/nature09365.html
University of Arizona (2010, September 16). Glaciers help high-latitude mountains grow taller. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 19, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915140119.htm
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