ENGL 1301

Week 5 Due on Feb 22

2012-02-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

1. Rough draft due by email on Feb 22.

2. In addition to working on your argument paper, you will watch the following videos and take notes on them.

Note each fallacy provided in the videos and define them in your own words. Go to class blog kwomblesengl1301.blogspot.com where the videos are embedded in the week 5 assignments.

Using this information, create a discussion post (at least 250 words) discussing these fallacies and provide examples of when you've fallen for them or used them and how you would avoid doing so in the future.

Comment substantially (100 words) on a classmate's post.

3. Create citations for each of these videos--click on them to go to where they are on youtube. Email me the citations as a word document. Use chapter 36 to make a correct works cited page.

4. Read chapter 24 on commas. Then go to http://chompchomp.com/exercises.htm, scroll down and find the commas exercises and do at least two of them to make sure you understand comma rules. Failure to do this will be reflected in your future writing assignments, and comma errors will cost you points in your discussion posts and written assignments.

Week 4 Due Feb 15

2012-02-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Please read chapter 35 on plagiarism and the following essay.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/what-is-plagiarism.aspx

Create an MLA citation for the textbook and for the article. Cite both in your assignment.

Write an essay on why plagiarism is a big deal and should be avoided at all costs. Make sure you have a clear thesis and three supports for your thesis. Your essay should have five paragraphs and should cite your sources, quoting where appropriate. If you use more than two words in a row, you need it quoted. If it's not your idea, you need to cite it.

Avoid first person and second person in formal essays unless first person is explicitly allowed. Second person is not acceptable unless you're doing a process paper.

Watch out for grammar and punctuation mistakes.

Post your essay on the discussion board by the 15th. Read and respond to a peer's essay, with a substantial response--at least 100 words.

Read Ch 5 on argument essays. Your first major paper will be an argument essay with at least two sources--it will be two pages long and have a works cited page (remember chapter 36 is your friend!). You will post your topic on the discussion board by the 15th, along with a tentative outline--outline consists of your thesis statement and supports for the thesis. Please comment on a classmate's post. Has someone also chosen the same topic? How is that classmate's coverage different from your's?

Rough draft due by email on Feb 22; I will read your essay, offer suggestions and you will correct your paper and email it as an attachment by Feb 29.

Week 3 Due Feb 8

2012-01-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

Read chapters 3 and 4.
Do exercise 3.1 p78 and post to the discussion board (title it exercise 3.1)
Do exercise 4.2 p112 and post to the discussion board (title it exercise 4.2)
Read ch 23, 24.

Look over Ch 36 on MLA format, paying close attention to the sample essay.
Using your word processor, take your Week 2 assignment over Here Be Dragons and The Baloney Detection Kit and reformat it for MLA, making sure you have a separate page for the works cited. Edit and revise your paper, as needed, based on what you've learned from reading chapter 3 and 4 and correct any punctuation or grammar errors. Email me the paper as an attachment.

Course Schedule Week 2 Due Feb 1

2012-01-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.chompchomp.com/csfs01/csfs01.htm Please do this exercise. You do not have to submit it, but practice will help you. Please read chapter 20 and do exercise 20.2 p396-397 and exercise 20.4 p398-399. Email the answers to me by Feb 1.

Please read chapter 2. Write at least a paragraph summarizing the writing process as presented in chapter 2 and where you feel you are weak and where you are strong and post it to the discussion board. Respond to a classmate.

Please watch Michael Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit at http://youtu.be/eUB4j0n2UDU. Then write a brief comparison of it and Dunning's Here be Dragons and post it to the discussion board. In it, begin to use MLA format.

Make a works cited for it, citing both Dunning and Shermer. Use this basic format:

Editor or Author. "Segment Title." Title of database or Website (italicized). Year of publication. Format. Date of access.

In the paper itself, use the author name (if available) or title or beginning words of the title if author is not available. If you don't mention the author or the title, then you need to use a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence in your text.

Post will look like this:

Body of post.

Works Cited (centered)

Dunning, Brian. NOW YOU FINISH IT

Shermer, Michael. NOW YOU FINISH IT

Course Schedule ONLINE SPRING WEEK 1

2012-01-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

Week 1 Due Jan 25
Read the grading criteria, syllabus and course schedule. Get comfortable with blackboard and the blog. Pick up, open, and begin to read your textbook starting with chapter 1.

Introduce yourselves in the discussion board on blackboard for an easy A daily grade.
Discuss your expectations and concerns for the course.

Please view Here Be Dragons. Discuss your thoughts on the video and your reaction to what you've watched. What surprised you? Did something annoy you? Respond to a classmate. Daily grade.

Future assignments will be announced as we go. There will be four major papers. There will be discussion prompts, as well, and some grammar and MLA exercises.

Email me at wombles@sbcglobal.net with any questions.

Cisco College Writing Program Guidelines

2012-01-13T09:15:00.001-08:00

Cisco College Writing Program Guidelines
 The Writing Program at Cisco College recognizes writing as a means of communication, academic discovery, intellectual awareness, political power, and personal expression. Writing can be improved through participation in a writing process, studying rhetorical strategies, college-level reading, and critically engaging one’s own mechanics, organization, and development.
 The English Department emphasizes writing as a recursive process.
 The English Department requires 4-6 essay assignments of varying length toward varied purposes and topics in English 1301, and 3-5 major writing projects emphasizing academic style and requiring research and critical analysis of source material in 1302. Both 1301 and 1302 may include a major revision as a writing project.
 The English Department encourages varied writing activities, assignments, and assessments within composition courses. Some of these activities include, but are not limited to, journal writing, free-writing, in-class responses, formal and informal reading responses, essay exams, critical short answer quizzes or paragraphs, reflective writing, and peer critiques.
 Instructors’ syllabus policies may require that students complete all essay projects to be eligible to pass the course.
 At least 60% of the course grade should come from assessed writing activities. Portfolio grading is allowed.
 Timely and thoughtful feedback and grades should prompt students to re-engage their process and work. Feedback and/or grades should be provided prior to the next major assignment’s submission date. The department encourages innovation in formative, periodic, and summative assessment.
 Student writing should be evaluated on process as well as product; however, instructors may determine the assessment methods and/or weighting for the writing process.
 All grade disputes require documentation from the student. Students are advised to keep all of their graded work until they receive their final grades.
 The English Department strives for a 25-student course-limit in order to fulfill these guidelines which support: discipline-integrity and practices1; student- and instructor- innovation; collaborative learning experiences; a dynamic classroom environment that facilitates focused study, discussion, workshops, and varied course activities and material. Additionally, the Department makes no distinction between course size, requirements and rigor for non-traditional course formats or student populations, but does acknowledge a time-commitment increase for technologically-enhanced or –delivered courses.

1 The English Department strives to adhere to the positions, practices, and policies of professional organizations in English, composition, and higher education: Conference on College Composition and Communication; National Council of Teachers of English; Modern Languages Association; Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts; Two-Year College English Association; American Federation of Teachers; Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

Editing Exercises

2011-11-08T08:07:00.001-08:00

http://college.cengage.com/english/raimes/universal_keys/1e/students/editing/index.html

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0697353672/student_view0/chapter7/editing_exercises.html

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0697353672/student_view0/chapter6/editing_exercises.html

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0697353672/student_view0/chapter4/editing_exercises.html

http://jjc.jjay.cuny.edu/erc/grammar/editing/ex5.php

http://www.penandpage.com/EngMenu/gramtext.htm#proofreading

Labossiere's blog

2011-11-08T06:01:00.001-08:00

http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=2444

Logical Fallacies with Labossiere

2011-11-06T07:45:00.001-08:00

2011-11-06T05:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/examples.html

Optional Nizkor fallacy site

2011-11-04T04:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6889050/Nizkor-Project-Fallacies-Labossier

Skepticism That's Funny

2011-10-28T04:47:00.001-07:00

This week's grammar lessons

2011-10-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp

http://www.grammarbook.com/numbers/numbers.asp

"Things We Say Wrong"

2011-09-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Declare This

2011-09-19T04:42:00.001-07:00

What you Need!

2011-09-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

M/W and T/Th class:
Monday or Tuesday: Skeptoid one page paper printed out, flash drive with paper on it. Article printed out.
Wednesday or Thursday: Huffington one page paper printed out, flash drive with paper on it. Article printed out.
Be ready for Nizkor quiz of the week.

Friday class. All of the above. :-)

Check the week we're in for specific skeptoid and any additional assignments.

Proofreading

2011-09-13T08:41:00.001-07:00

Handy-Dandy Checklists

2011-09-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.science20.com/countering_tackling_woo/when_common_sense_fails_checklists_save_you_woo-82606 revised version.

Sometimes, when things are bad enough, we'll cave into things that we should know better. Common sense isn't nearly as common as it should be and we are none of us as skeptical as we should be. Except for those Missourians, who live by the motto, "Show me." I'm not too sure of that, though, as showing people works all too well or those power bracelets wouldn't be so popular. Brian Dunning, following on the coattails of skeptics before him, has devised a 15 point checklist of questions we can ask when our common sense has deserted us or, even worse, has us convinced that the bra genie will fix all our back fat problems.

Checklists are handy-dandy things to have when you wander off into woo-filled stores like Drug Emporium or Wal-Mart. Yes, even your favorite chain store is filled with unproven, untested products like these:

Without something like Dunning's list, buyers are at a serious disadvantage. Certainly some of his checklist questions won't be particularly helpful while standing stuffy-nosed and miserable in front of the medicine aisles in Walgreens, where the woo mixes with the real deals, with nothing to tip the foggy-headed buyer off. After all, when you just want someone to put you out of your misery, are you really going to ask question number one: "Does the claim meet the qualifications of a theory?" (Dunning). Do you really give a flying fig? You just want to breathe and do so now.

Dunning's second question, "Is the claim said to be based on ancient knowledge?" is more likely to be relevant in natural food stores where all natural, ancient remedies are a dime a dozen. Scratch that. They may be everywhere, but they aren't a dime a dozen; they're expensive money drains.

After having rummaged through the local stores for cures to your misery, you sit bleary-eyed and ready to hurt someone, staring at your tv as informercials begin to air. And this is where Dunning's third question is invaluable: "Was the claim first announced through mass media, or through scientific channels?" If you're watching it on an infomercial, do you really think science has weighed in on it? If Chuck Norris is selling it, really?

Having recovered enough to go to the local peddler's market, you're still under the weather and you see a vendor selling salt lamps and magnets, both of which promise to cure everything from MS to allergies. This is where Dunning's sixth question is a real keeper: "Does the claim sound far fetched, or too good to be true?"

All fifteen of Dunning's questions are ones we do not, unfortunately, ask ourselves before we plunk down our hard-earned dollars on something that promises smaller waistlines or improved joint functioning or shoes that will make us lose weight or mystical, magical rubber bracelets with holograms in them that make you invulnerable and invisible. So, don't be a sucker, print these fifteen questions out and tape them into your wallet next to your credit card so you'll think twice the next time some huckster promises to cure your warts and make you grow two inches taller with the same product.

Works Cited

Dunning, Brian. "How to Spot Pseudoscience." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc., 6 Apr 2007. Web. 12 Sep 2011.

What do I do with the Skeptoid and Huff assignments?

2011-09-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

At the heart of these assignments is what is called textual analysis. You should ask (and answer) the following questions on all your assignments.

Who is the piece by and what is the piece called?

What claim is being made? (thesis statement)

What evidence is being offered for the claim? (supporting evidence)

Is the evidence accurate? Is it sufficient? (are there fallacies? good arguments?)

What is your take on the claim?

What evidence do you have for your opinion? Do you agree or disagree with the author and why?

Then, you will use the answers to craft a thesis statement and write your paper, making sure to incorporate the answers into the paper.

These will be MLA formatted. Make sure to have a works cited page, too. I will provide a sample paper.

Example of Textual Analysis (from Huffington Post)

2011-09-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

What Are You? A Lanza Counter

Ohmmmmm... Oh my gods!

I don't know. Color me bored. Robert Lanza's up at Huffington Post again and I can't seem to get a comment on his post. Hee. Don't know why. So, I'm going to veg out this evening, eat some popcorn and drink some root beer and write. This latest woo-fest is by Robert Lanza, mystical guru god, he who hath heroically created the theory of biocentrism, except he needs a new name now that he's decided we're not physical and hence not biological. Lanza's new piece is just like every other piece he's written: hot air, no substance, all flash and no bang.

In this latest piece, Lanza opines: "The world was once wondrous." The universe is indeed wondrous, as is this world, and all the people in it, including fatuous egomaniacs. He then goes on, "As a boy I remember mounting the stairs that led to the legendary Harvard Medical School. The huge granite slabs were worn by past generations of scientists." Lanza continues, "Here, I fancied, the greatest minds on the planet busied themselves around electron microscopes and ultra-centrifuges, working in their laboratories on secret experiments."

Lanza, ever the wise, then adds, "But I'm older now, and my colleagues tell me we're just the activity of carbon and some proteins; we live awhile and die." Yeah, and wooier. What does the previous sentence, fancying and experimenting have to do with reality: we live and then we die? Note the lack of substance, the verbosity.

Lanza wins for drama queen: "And the universe? It too has no meaning. They have it all worked out in the equations -- no need for woo." No wonder Lanza went wacky-woo; he thought he'd get definite answers, all the mysteries solved, but he didn't like what he discovered? The universe is incredible; meaning is subjective and something we place on our realities. He could have remained at awe at how trillions of cells work together to create an organism with a consciousness, but he felt the need for empty answers of mystical woo and he admits it.

Lanza now launches into pseudoscientific claptrap: "But a series of new experiments suggest this may be all wrong, and that part of us exists outside of the physical world." What? What series of new experiments? Why do all his posts go this way? Vague references and woo. Part of him exists outside of reason and rationality, that's for sure. He goes on, "We're trapped in an outdated paradigm. A few more equations, we're told, and we'll know it all -- any day now." I wonder what planet he lives on? That's such crap. Who believes this? Boo hoo: Lanza laments, "There's no adventure left, no lost gardens in far away lands." Oh my gods. Yeah, all the knowledge of the universe is already at our fingertips. We know it all now. Crap. Somebody needs a therapist and some help. Never mind, he's his own guru: "But we all intuitively know there's more to existence than our science books grant. It's the same nostalgic yearning that gives religion its persistent power over humanity." There ya go. Woo, woo, woo. Lanza's ready to sell some woo. He's bummed on the science. He's bummed because he's realized there might not be anything after this. And he's watched Deepak Chopra get rich selling this exact same mumbo-jumbo.

Lanza then delves into why he went into science (too bad he lost his way)": "It was this search that lured me into science." He's disappointed with the answers he's found and writes, "It was startling to realize, after studying neurobiology, that objects, indeed our own bodies, are nothing but representations in our mind -− that we can't see anything through the bone surrounding the brain." Objects and bodies are "nothing but representations"? I don't think so. They're rendered as representations but they exist outside of our experience of them.

Lanza's pieces always refer to something ridiculous, then turn to scientific experiments which he never sources and always butchers to bolster his claims that we are all mystical mumbo jumbo and figments of our imaginations, never to die:

We assume there's a universe "out there" separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet since the 1920s, experiments have shown just the opposite; results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is most vividly illustrated by the famous two-hole experiment. When you watch a particle go through the holes, it behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave and can pass through both holes at the same time.

These sentences don't stack up the way he thinks they do. And if you think he's explaining the two slit experiment well, here's a neat site that looks at the experiment from the Physics lab at the University of Colorado:

This and other experiments tell us that unobserved particles exist only as "waves of probability" as Max Born demonstrated in 1926. They're statistical predictions -- nothing but a likely outcome. Until observed, they have no real existence; only when the mind sets the scaffolding in place can they be thought of as having duration or a position in space. Experiments make it increasingly clear that even mere knowledge in the experimenter's mind is sufficient to convert possibility to reality.

Somebody's been reading The Secret! If we're not physical and we create reality as we go, what are we? Sounds like a fast way into a diagnosis of some sort, doesn't it? Lanza drones on about how all this proves his biocentrism is the wave of the future. Considering last week he decided we reboot when we die, it's no wonder now we're not even physical. Next week, he'll probably decide we're not even quantum and don't exist outside a snow globe. One thing's for sure, if it's Lanza, and it's at all related to his biocentrism, it will be woo.

Works Cited

"Classic Two-Slit Experiment." The Atomic Lab. University of Colorado at Boulder, n.d. Web. 6 Sept. 2011.

Lanza, Robert. "What Are We? New Experiments Suggest We're Not Purely Physical." Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 29 June 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2011.

MLA exercise

2011-09-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday classes: if you missed class, you must create citations for this and email them to me by Thursday.

Create citations for these two articles:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/09/oh_no_theres_dna_in_my_gardasil.php

http://www.science20.com/science_20/see_supernova_weekend_your_kids-82131

Here Be Dragons Video

2011-08-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Not what to think..how to think

2011-08-21T09:20:00.001-07:00

Logical Fallacies

2011-08-14T10:01:00.001-07:00

They're everywhere and easy to learn about.

Take the time to look around, watch some videos, read some websites, and get comfortable with the fallacies and examples of them.

Your papers will be better if you know about these and know how to avoid them in your own arguments.

Claims.
Evidence.

No matter what you write, you will make claims and you need evidence to back those claims up.

inFact Logical Fallacies 1

2011-08-14T09:56:00.002-07:00

inFact Logical Fallacies 2

2011-08-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

inFact Logical Fallacies 3

2011-08-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

Taylor Mali: What teachers make

2011-08-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

Irony...

2011-07-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

In Fact with Brian Dunning water bottles

2011-04-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

What is Dunning's main claim?
What evidence does he offer?
Do you feel his evidence is sufficient?
Why?

More Michael Shermer

2011-02-22T18:36:00.001-08:00

Homeopathy

2011-02-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

Good article with a nice graphic: Homeopathy: The Make-Believe Medicine

Why People Believe Lies

2011-01-31T07:58:00.001-08:00

Emergency Handbook: What to Do When a Friend Loves Woo

2011-01-22T16:21:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of class: Read the transcript as you listen to the podcast: Emergency Handbook: What to Do When a Friend Loves Woo.

Material is quizzable, so remembering what the three things Dunning advises might be a good thing to do:

Do nothing (explain that).
Intervention (be able to discuss that).
Be there (how is that different from doing nothing?).

Be able to define woo in your own words.

Woo Primer

2011-01-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

Before You Buy: A Woo Primer for Parents (comments at Countering worth examining if there is time)

Crafted for your viewing consumption by KWombles on Sunday, November 21, 2010

It seems like many autism-related sites have ads on them for our kids, promising all sorts of results. How do we evaluate the claims of these products and prevent ourselves from (1) wasting precious financial resources, and (2) putting our precious children in harm's way? There are some key things that one can look for that indicate woo and pseudoscience. We don't have to be experts in a field; we just have to know how to evaluate claims and evidence.

Look at this ad located at the Autism File:

Tip off number 1: Natural. Natural implies better, safer, but has no particular relevance when it comes to safety or efficacy. It's a gimmick and operates off people's inferences. Look for words like "natural" and "organic."

Tip off number 2: Doctor recommended. What doctor? Just one doctor? This also means nothing. It's an appeal to authority. Look out for things like "doctor recommended" and "clinically tested."

And that's just on the ad itself. When one looks to the website for the company, more vague, meaningless asssertions abound.

The first thing a person should do when examining a company offering treatments for various illnesses or disorders is scroll to the bottom and look for something like this: "All material on BioRay's website is provided for your information only and is not intended as medical advice or instruction. No action or inaction should be taken based solely on the contents of this information; readers should consult appropriate health professionals on any matter relating to their health and well being. This site and its content have not been evaluated by the FDA. The products and information on this site are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease." You won't see this warning without scrolling down and looking for it and it will usually be in smaller print.

In other words, if one buys this company's products, one is choosing to buy something that isn't proven, isn't regulated, and could be anything at all. It takes awhile for the FDA to get around to shutting down quack companies and in the meantime, folks like Mercola, Weil, Mike Adams, and anyone who wants to set up shop in their mom's basement can sell whatever they want as long as they don't make specific health claims.

The first thing, though, that readers will see after clicking on the ad is this: "BioRay utilizes the extraordinary balance of nature and science to create safe and effective organic whole food supplements that support, protect and maintain children’s health and wellness while recognizing their developmental needs."

What does "extraordinary balance of nature and science" mean? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Listen, everything, and I mean literally everything, is composed of atoms of different elements that combine into different chemical compounds. Science allows us to understand nature. There's no balance. And there's no specificity in the above sentence from BioRay. How do we know they are "safe and effective organic whole food supplements that support, protect and maintain children’s health and wellness while recognizing their developmental needs"? What do they mean by organic? Whole food? What do they mean by that? And how does an "organic whole food" pill manage to "support, protect and maintain children’s health and wellness" at the same time that a PILL recognizes "their developmental needs"? It's completely meaningless, and it should be a huge red flag when this is what one reads in the first paragraph of the main page of the company's website.

Any kind of medication or treatment (and this is arguing that it will treat and fix a child's autism) should make specific claims backed by empirical evidence. Watch out for vague rhetoric that when you break the sentences down into their substituent parts has no substance, no meaning.

The next paragraph is "Doctor recommended for children on the Autism Spectrum, BioRay products were created in clinic and are manufactured by integrating clinically tested ingredients with proprietary methods."

Again with the doctor recommendation. So? Which doctor? Why should we care? Okay, did the doctor who created them recommend it? This sentence is also completely meaningless and offers no support for why a concerned parent should buy this product and give it to her child. As parents, we should require more information. We should be inherently skeptical of someone trying to sell us products for our children.

Tip off number 3: Testimonials and anecdotes of the products efficacy are not evidence.

The website continues its sales pitch: "Parents of ASD children see dramatic improvements in cognition, appropriate social behavior, attention, concentration, communication, and eye contact with Liver Life™, CytoFlora™, and NDF Plus™."

Anecdotal appeal with no substance. Why should we believe this website? And what constitutes "dramatic improvements." We have a responsibility to not be swayed by words on a page with no corroborating evidence. What plausible mechanisms would account for these products creating all these improvements? Where is the empirical evidence that these products do this? Note that it's three separate products, too. The information for each product is just as meaningless.

Tip off number 4: Beware questionnaires, especially when they come with product recommendations.

Alright, let's say none of this has set off red flags for the parent, and the parent moves on to "Where Do I Start?" Beware of questionnaires. Especially if you are gullible. Oh dear gods, I took it and I scored 139! I have high toxicity exposure because for one, I had vaccines, which are worth 20 whole points. Smoking is also worth 20 points. Wow. Really? I need "Liver Life, CytoFlora. Total environmental cleanse/detox immediately." No matter how low I go, though, I need both Liver Life and CytoFlora. Let's say you were buying into what they had to say, but decided to do what I did and tinker with the questionnaire. The fact that it recommends the same two products even if I get my score down to 1.

So what evidence does BioRay provide that this is an valid and reliable questionnaire? None. How do they tabulate the score and decide how much each symptom or answer is worth? Don't know. Empirically validated questionnaires will inform you of all of this. And there won't be product recommendations when you are through, either.

Tip off number 5: Look out for published articles and case studies.

Moving on, the next reasonable place to look is at their tab Articles and Case Studies. They claim they've been published in the "peer reviewed Explore Magazine and provide a link to a study with ten kids on the spectrum. It's not a study, though; it's an extended advertisement. PubMed and online databases turn up no hits for the article, even turning to the Alt HealthWatch database. The pdf of the paper shows that it's Explore! volume 19 issue 1. It's not EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, though. That's certainly woo-filled, but nope. So where is Explore!? Hard to find, to be honest, although if you plug in
"Explore! volume 19 issue 1" to google, you can get pdfs of other articles, like one on Morgellons. To the trusty databases we go! Using Academic Search Complete, Alt HealthWatch, Health Source - Consumer Edition, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, MEDLINEand typing in Explore! and source doesn't bring up this journal. After wading through other hits on google, I hit on a blog that took me back to Explore!

If it's legitimate, then the journal should be clearly identified and easily findable. Most peer reviewed journals
won't say peer reviewed right on the banner. And this isn't a journal. The chakra pictures ought to be a clue as well that you've entered the land of mystical woo woo. Hey, and the fact that one can buy the entire "library" of Explore! for $295 ought to be a tip off. This should be as well: "We gladly accept articles from our advertisers or those wishing to publish research on products or treatments. In such instances, the following guidelines will apply: A) The product, treatment, or device must not be mentioned more than two (2) times throughout the article; and B) The name and contact information of manufacturers, distributors, or any other source from which the items may be obtained may not be mentioned in the article at all."

Despite Explore!'s assertion that it is peer reviewed, there is no evidence that it is; the only indication is this bit under submission guidelines: "Your article submission will be reviewed and requires approval by the Journal's Articles Review Board in order to be accepted for publication." That is not what is generally meant by peer review.

Tip off number 6: Look at the credentials of the persons running the company.

So BioRay has one publication in a woo magazine and no articles in reputable journals. None of the authors of the one publication have any publications in the databases mentioned above. One of the authors is the office administrator. The BioRay Team page shouldn't inspire confidence. As a parent, you want to make sure that the products you buy, the supplements you are going to put in your child's body are tested and reliable, made by qualified professionals. At the very least, you should want to see where these folks went to school, what their qualifications are. Generalized information like 'has studied heavy metal toxicity intensely' (my own description based on reading the descriptions of the team) should not inspire confidence.

Bottom Line: We have a tendency to believe that if it's for sale, it must be safe and it must work. This is not the case in the supplemental industry. The buyer must beware. There are no guarantees; there are rarely studies showing efficacy, and anyone can open a company, put the quack Miranda warning on her site, make vague claims and sell grass clippings as gastrointestinal supportive supplements.

Know the signs of woo and pseudoscience before you gamble with your child's well-being. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. And as for claims that big pharma won't reveal the truth about natural cures because they'd lose money, no. They'd synthesize it like they did with white willow bark and aspirin and make sure that every dose contained the same amount of active ingredients.