IV Infusion for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXIV

It has always been (and always will be) our preference that the information we receive be passed along by people who are competent in the subject at hand. We don't know about you, but we're not in the habit of asking the guy who cuts our grass how to treat strep throat or consult with our physician on how to cut dovetail joints. Sure, some landscapers are retired army medics and some doctors are woodworking hobbyists, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. That lack of pertinent experience is why we were unimpressed by the job eHowian Rona Aquino performed while attempting to explain "How to Calculate Milligrams Per Hour" for HomeSteady.com.

Contrast Media for Dummies

Iodine contrast media in brain x-ray

Excuse us if we seem demanding, but we're of the opinion that if you ask what [unknown thing A] is, you deserve to know what it is. You don't necessarily need to know every little detail about it, but we're pretty sure that defining [unknown thing A] in 19 words and then going into tangential details for another 359 words doesn't cut it. That, unfortunately, is precisely what Alicia Bodine tried to do for WiseGEEK in her theHealthBoard.com post, "What is Contrast Dye?"

Barium Sulfate for Dummy X-Ray Techs (WiseGeek Week 1)

Human intestinal tract imaged
with barium contrast medium

It's been a while since we cast the Antisocial Network spotlight on a single site, but ever since we identified our first DotD from WiseGeek.com a couple of months ago, the staffers have been compiling a backlog of other candidates from the site. With forty or fifty possible candidates already in the files, we decided now was the time. Without further ado, then, we give you the first WiseGeek week winner, Felicia Dye, and her article "What is Barium Sulfate?" (now at the niche site AlltheScience.com, a misnomer if there ever was one.

Calf Pain for Dummies

Anatomy of the calf

When it comes to medical questions, we prefer to get our information from a professional. 'Nuff said? Apparently not everyone agrees, however, that if you have an ache or pain, you should talk to your doctor or other person who is educated in the field (as opposed to some "personal trainer" who took "kinesiology"). So why would we want medical advice from someone who, like Livestrong's Michelle Wishhart, is a gardener with an English lit degree? especially if we want to know about "Calf & Walking Pain"?¹

The Circulatory System for Dummies

muscle contractions, valves and blood circulation in veins

There weren’t a lot of rules back when anyone who wanted to could start publishing “freelance” articles for content farms. As a matter of fact, there weren’t any at all; at least as far as “extreme vetting” of the self-appointed experts’ content was concerned. You had journalism majors publishing on rocket science, rocket scientists publishing on cell biology, and cell biologists publishing on opera. Of course some of it was bull – what would you expect, especially from people pumping out as many articles in as short a time as possible? That’s how you end up with rubbish like what Imani Angulo published at Sciencing.com under the title, “What Three Things Help Push Blood Through Veins?”

Ice Packs for Dummies

resuable gel hot and cold ice pack

Not only are most of the daily dumbasses featured here at the Antisocial Network simply unqualified to address their topics, many of them did so anyway at a website that performed as an enabler. Because of the site's stringent word-count and format demands and exacerbated by clueless content editors, many articles posted at eHow.com didn't merely fail to inform they readers, sometimes hey did so spectacularly. Today's DotD is a possible example: English BA Susan Diranian trying to tell her readers about "Gel Ice Pack Ingredients."¹

Trazodone for Dummies

Trazodone bottle

After almost two years of looking at the constant dumbassery posted to pay-for-writing sites, we thought we'd reached a level of jadedness such that we could no longer be surprised by someone's stupidity. We were wrong! While poking through that mother lode of misinformation, eHow.com, we ran across a graphic designer (with a BFA, cum laude!) using the name of Leonor Crossley. Although not a medical professional – not even a medical amateur, as far as the Antisocial Network staffers can tell – Crossley decided to answer the question, "What is Trazodone?"¹ Her answer does not paint a pretty picture...

According to Crossley,

Poisonous Plants for Dummies

Poinsettia plant

One of our staff distinctly remembers a decades-old cartoon showing a pair of dogs deep in conversation (face-to-face instead of nose-to-butt). The cartoon's punchline? "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Well, we're here to tell you that on the internet, nobody seems to know that you're a liar, misinformed, or simply throwing shade on topics about which you know nothing. Take Isabelle Esteves of Writedge.com (and numerous other sites), a freelancer who writes glowing travel reviews of places she's never seen, and gives readers useless advice about a wide array of topics. Today, we find Izzy at it again, spreading misinformation and old wive's tales in her "Guide to Poisonous Plants."¹

OTC Medications for Dummies

We don't wander into medicine often here at the Antisocial Network, but that's because we're not particularly qualified to dispense advice. Band-Aids on your boo-boos, maybe, but not medical advice. Of course, lack of qualification never stopped any freelancer from blathering on about any topic, and serial dummy Isabelle Esteves (of Writedge.com) is no exception. Today, Iz (as she apparently likes to be called) put aside her faux travel reviews long enough to expound on the "Risk Of Too Much Acetaminophen."¹ Shouldn't that be "risks"? we wondered... never mind.