A journal outlines an experiment and its main results. An article outlines the journal, usually conveying the most important results that would apply to the reader. Simple enough, right? Not always. Since the article is limited to a certain amount of words, it has to condense the journal down to its main points. The article can almost be thought of as a Cole’s Notes version of the journal. It translates the heavily worded and abbreviation plagued text into something more understandable for the reader. During all this translating and condensing a lot of points from the main journal can be cut out. This can result in the main findings or even the topic of the journal to be changed. Sometimes this can cause a large difference between the primary and secondary source, but not always. In this post, the journal “Similarity of Bisphenol A Pharmacokinetics in Phesus Monkeys and Mice: Relevance for Human Exposure” by Julia A. Taylor and the corresponding articles “BPA Levels Much Higher Than FDA Estimates, Study Says” and “Higher Than Predicted Human Exposure to the Toxic Chemical Bisphenol A or BPA, New Study Indicates”, both of which do not have authors listed, will be compared to see the difference between a primary and secondary source.The journal “Similarity of Bisphenol A Pharmacokinetics in Phesus Monkeys and Mice: Relevance for Human Exposure” goes through how several researchers administered bioactive and non-bioactive Bisphenol A (BPA) to adult female monkeys and mice and then tested after predetermined amounts of time how much remained in their systems. From this they would be able to tell how much of the BPA was digested and if any of it accumulated in the system with time. They could then compare their results with pre-existing data from a previous experiment done with humans to see if there was any relation. From their data they would be able to tell whether monkeys, mice, and humans all digested BPA differed. The article “BPA Levels Much Higher Than FDA Estimates, Study Says” talks about how humans may be ingesting more BPA than previously thought and from different sources. As you can see, the main points of the journal and the article aren’t really matching up. This is an example of an article focusing in on just one point of a journal. The proposal that humans were ingesting more BPA was mentioned in the journal in the results section, it just was not one of the main objectives of the experiment. The reason the article would focus in on this point is because the idea that the public is taking in a harmful chemical is a very appealing subject. It is something that people would want to know about. For the rest of the article it refers to other studies done for products with possible BPA content and talks about North America’s way of dealing with such products. There is no mention of how the experiment was conducted or how they concluded the high levels of BPA were being ingested. The article only uses points that support the one conclusion, and makes no mention of any of the other findings in the journal.
Another article that was based on this journal is titled “Higher Than Predicted Human Exposure to the Toxic Chemical Bisphenol A or BPA, New Study Indicates”. It too focused on the conclusion that humans were consuming more BPA through different products. The difference between its delivery of the information and that of the previous article is that it gives more information about the experiment itself. The tagline to the article is: “Researchers have discovered that women, female monkeys and female mice have major similarities when it comes to how bisphenol A (BPA) is metabolized. . .”. So right away the reader is told a bit more about the experiments results. Then, like the previous article, it talks a little bit about the products BPA can be found in, basic facts about it and what the United States are doing about it.
A secondary source can sometimes focus on a small point made in a journal and sometimes it can take a point out of context. With the articles mentioned today, we only came across the prior point. However, we did see how the articles can differ. Both articles mentioned the point that BPA may be found in more products than originally thought and one article went into a bit more detail about the experiment involved. So to say whether an article of a journal is bad or not one must decide how much information about that topic they need. The first article went into nice detail about BPA products and how Canada and the USA are dealing with them, while the second article related the topic more to how it was concluded. Therefore, we can see that the focus of an article can differ from the main focus of the journal it is related to.
References:
Taylor JA, vom Saal FS, Welshons WV, Drury B, Rottinghaus G, Hunt PA, et al. 2010. Similarity of Bisphenol A Pharmacokinetics in Rhesus Monkeys and Mice: Relevance for Human Exposure. Environ Health Perspect :-. doi:10.1289/ehp.1002514 link:http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.1002514#Ahead%20of%20Print%20%28AOP%29
Environmental Leader. (2010, September). BPA Levels Much Higher Than FDA Estimates, Study Says. Retrieved from http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/09/23/bpa-levels-much-higher-than-fda-estimates-study-says/
Sciencedaily (2010, September 21). Higher than predicted human exposure to the toxic chemical bisphenol A or BPA, new study indicates. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/09/100920173008.htm
Julia Lee -- 0722659 -- ENVS*1020
Sorry for the horrible formatting. It messed up when I was pasting it over from Word. I'm going to see if I can fix it in a litte bit.
ReplyDelete