The Mohs Hardness Scale for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXII

talc (left) and gypsum (right)

Few occurrences are more frustrating for our scientifically competent staffers than witnessing a scientifically illiterate liberal arts graduate pretend to explain something in the reader's wheelhouse but botching the explanation... badly. Sadly, that's pretty much the business model of the website formerly known as eHow.com, at least the portion that now lives in Sciencing.com.¹ For your consideration today, we offer an example of such work: J-school grad Christina Martinez and her unsuccessful attempt to share "How to Tell the Difference Between Talc & Gypsum."

Hunting Dinosaur Fossils for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIX

Dinosaur fossil (Mesozioc, Wyoming)

One of the more irritating habits of the freelancers who plied their "trade" at eHow.com and its many niche sites was a pair of diametrically opposite tendencies: either they turned simple questions complex or they turned complex questions simple. Being ignorant of the answer is, at least to us, no excuse; for eHow it was just "minimum word count" plus "SEO" equals cash. Sadly, some of eHow's (now Leaf Group's) freelancers are still at it: witness marine biologist and small dog trainer Marina Somma attempting to answer the question, "In Which States Are Dinosaur Fossils Found?" for Sciencing.com (with her usual little help from biologist Sylvie Tremblay). It's a rewrite of a 2011 post by Craig Colin Smith...

Glacial Landscapes for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLVII

Continental glacial features

Few habits are more irksome to the staffers here at the Antisocial Network than faking expertise. As someone¹ once said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." Unfortunately, a significant number – feel free to read "significant number" as "all" – of the people who receive our coveted Dumbass of the Day award have done just that, although in print rather than orally. Be that as it may, it's time to trot out another awardee who pretended to know quite a bit about earth science, much to the displeasure of our staff geologist. She's Sciencing.com contributor Lindsey Taylor who, along with reviewer Sylvie Tremblay, M. Sc., tried to pull the wool over the public eye in "How Do Glaciers Change the Landscape?" Sadly, she failed...

Buoyancy for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXL

Buoyancy: how things float

So, the newbie staffer logged into the morning meeting and immediately chirped that they'd found the perfect candidate in just one sentence. Several of us who were already Zoomed in chuckled and allowed as to how that's not all that rare, especially when a freelancer with an English (or "communications") BA tries to reword something even slightly technical. Since this was their first nomination, though, we agreed to listen... and darned if the kid wasn't spot on. Without further ado, then, here's a sendup of multiple award winner Megan Shoop and her attempt to explain "How to Make Things Float in Water" for Sciencing.com.

Seafloor Spreading for Dummies, the Rewrite - The Freelance Files MMCCXXXVI

Convection and seafloor spreading

While we applaud the fact that someone at Leaf Group has A) realized that a large fraction of the company's content is bogus and B) enlisted "experts" to review new and rewritten content, we truly wish that some of their rewrites corrected the content instead of merely rehashing and expanding on the dumbassery that was already there. Unfortunately, that's not always true. A case in point is the work of rewrite "expert" Marina Somma and her reviewer, Sylvie Tremblay, M. Sc. Take, for example, the Sciencing.com post "What Is the Primary Force That Causes the Seafloor to Spread?"

African Geology for Dummies, Redux - The Freelance Files MMCCXXVI

East African triple junction

Over the years, we've noticed that the nice people at Leaf Group (formerly Demand Media Studios, or DMS¹) have enlisted freelance writers with (more) pertinent backgrounds to rewrite some of the rubbish visited on the former eHow.com by J-school and creative writing grads. You'll note the "more" in that last sentence: it strikes us as unlikely that someone with a long-ago degree in ecology would be the right person to explain plate tectonics... but that's where J. Dianne Dotson comes in. J. Dianne took on the task of rewriting the dreck originally published by Chris Burke on the topic of "Facts About the African Plate" for Sciencing.com. As usual, a "review" by molecular biologist Sylvie Tremblay did not appear to help.

Minerals in Indiana, a Dummy Speaks - The Freelance Files MMCCXXV

"Panning for gold," Indiana-style

Fans of the television show "Big Bang Theory" are probably well aware of the low regard in which main character Sheldon Cooper holds the science of geology. That's probably because of the introductory college course "rocks for jocks" that so many liberal arts majors take when the meteorology classes are full and they still need a science elective. Unfortunately, most of said liberal arts majors – and more than a few science majors – are remain ignorant of even the most basic geology. One such self-described "scientist" (now a dog trainer) is Marina Somma, and she managed to utterly botch a simple assignment in the earth sciences when she rewrote "Gems & Stones Found in Indiana" for Sciencing.com. Biology type Sylvie Tremblay, who supposedly reviewed the science, was no help...

Visible Light for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXIII

cartoon of photons

A not-so-surprising number of our nominees for DotD are caught by our staffers because of errors in common sense. Take, for instance, the ignoramus who thought a normal human could operate a stationary bicycle at 500 RPM... Ignorance of the topic should be no excuse, but hey: when some website offers to pay you fifteen bucks for 300 words of bullshit, why not pump out as many posts as possible? Whatever the case, much of what we've found at the supposedly more technical websites (Leaf Group's Sciencing.com or WiseGEEK's AlltheScience.com, for instance) has been at least somewhat suspect because of an author's weak comprehension of the topic. You know, like Bill Richards when he tried to explain "How to Convert Photons to Joules" for Sciencing.com.

Methane for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXII

Methane molecule

Believe it or not, there was once a television show called "Kids Say the Darnedest Things." That was, of course, before seven-year-olds had their own TikTok feeds and broadcast their darnedest things for their own darned selves. Be that as it may, we're not here to talk about kids: today, at least, we're here to make fun of liberal arts grads who try to explain science online. It didn't take a whole lot of searching to find the dumbassery in "Uses of Methane Natural Gas," which eHowian Christina Hadley barfed up onto eHow and Leaf Group sent to their niche site Sciencing.com.

Deltas for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXVI

Ganges delta

Whether it's because the "information" they contain is often bogus or because the format no longer fits the SEO guru's specifications (more likely the latter), the nice people at Leaf Group have begun assigning a team of rewrite specialists to update chunks of their niche site content. So far, most of the work appears to have taken place in the sites Hunker.com and Sciencing.com. It's in the second that we ran across history/anthropology grad John Peterson attempting to explain "What Is a Delta Land Form?" In doing so, he was sprucing up a 2010 post by fellow historian Claire McAdams (with a little help from genetics fan Sylvie Tremblay).

Oil Wells for Dummies, Redux - The Freelance Files MMCCVIII

Production Tree

A few of our staffers were listening to a talking head on the radio recently and heard someone claim that "Everyone understands the oil business" (or words to that effect). As Thin Lizzy once said, "man, we fell about the place"! Damned near no one understands the oil business – especially radio talking heads. We've had more than a few laughs (and more groans) at some of the bogosity published by freelancers around the web pretending to explain hydrocarbons and their exploration, but few people have been as... amusing as Kevin Beck, cleanup team member for Sciencing.com, and his attempt to tell the world, "How does an Oil Well Work?"

Paleontology for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXII

Not all fossils are dinosaurs...

One of the staffers was recently reading a mystery-thriller when she concluded that the author had avoided taking any science courses on her way to a creative writing degree. Why? because any passage relating to the science was utterly clueless. It ruined an otherwise perfectly good book. We've noticed here at the Antisocial Network that creative writing (and journalism) majors tend to play fast and loose with STEM topics, especially when their "work" is edited by their fellow travelers in the liberal arts. That definitely includes C-W grad Maria Magher, who departed her mommyblogging comfort zone to pen "What Can We Learn by Studying Fossils?" for Sciencing.com.

Diamonds for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCVIII

Diagram of a kimberlite pipe

Anyone who's ever had the chance to watch search queries in real time knows that Google, Alexa, and Siri get asked some pretty doofus questions. Once you get past all the requests for celebrity news and the latest true crime scandal and get down to real questions asked by people who (think they) are real, you notice some strange stuff. A lot of it seems to be about ways to make money without much work. Duh. Besides all of the queries we've found about prospecting for gold or extracting it from household items, we also ran across the rather strange query, "What Type of Soil Are Diamonds Located In?" Even more bizarre, however, is the Sciencing.com post by Deb Lindstrom that purports to "answer" the question. 

Convergent Boundaries for Dummies, the Rewrite - The Freelance Files MMCCIV

Continental island arc with trench

For some bizarre reason, a not-insignificant segment of scientifically illiterate society seems to think that the mere possession of any degree that includes a "science" designation makes one an expert on all aspects of all science. This rather strange notion is, apparently, the logic behind the recent appearance of the byline, "Reviewed by: [name] M.Sc. [discipline]" on posts at Leaf Group's Sciencing.com. Staffers who've written peer-reviewed articles, which this pretends to emulate, note that the reviewer is always someone with an advanced degree in the science at hand. That's not, however, the case in "Facts on Convergent Boundaries" as rewritten by Meg Schader and reviewed by Sylvie Tremblay, with a degree in "Molecular Biology and Genetics."

How Dummies Find Gems in Indiana - The Freelance Files MMCXCV

rough emerald

If you're interested in accurate and reliable information, there's real danger in assuming that the "information" you receive from the people who till the manure-rich soil of content farms like eHow.com or its many niche sites. The business model of this particular farm is to "scrape" internet search queries and then pay freelancers to "answer" the questions. Unless you're lucky enough to find content written by someone with real knowledge of the topic, you're likely to find boilerplate bushwa. For an example of that sort of content, we direct your attention to the Sciencing.com post "How to Dig Your Own Emeralds in Indiana," recently rewritten by Marina Somma.

How Dummies Explain Diamond Formation - The Freelance Files MMCXCIV

rough diamond

If you were to search through the more than 2500 entries in this blog by topic (which you can do from the "Topics" page, if you want), you might notice that there are topics we don't write about. That's because we don't have anyone on staff who is sufficiently well-versed on the subjects to identify (and correct) bullshit about particle physics or cosmetology. Basic physics, yeah, but not the weird stuff like strange quarks and quantum entanglement. We long ago noticed, however, that the people who wrote for eHow.com (and continue to write for Leaf Group's niche sites) don't seem to be similarly constrained. Today's nominee is one such freelancer, a member of the cleanup crew who seems to specialize in science... because she has a "B.S. in Marine and Environmental Biology & Policy," we suppose. Unfortunately, Marina Somma was well out of her comfort zone when she updated "What Elements Make Up Natural Diamonds?" for Sciencing.com.

Radioactivity for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLIII

Radioactivity levels

Maybe it's just us, but we are firmly of the opinion that when someone is tasked with writing an informative article about the "Dangers & Uses of Radioactivity," it becomes hard to view the article as authoritative when one of the sections in the post is subtitled, "Radiation In Comic Books." We kid you not, however: that's the title of the last section in the above-titled post Russel Huebsch vomited up on eHow.com back in 2013. It still lives on the internet in the bizarrely-named niche site Sciencing.com. Ptui.

Building a Submarine for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXVII

 

Yes, Civita, people do build homemade subs

Are you familiar with the concept of bait-and-switch? Let's say an unscrupulous vendor advertises widgets for $3.99 but, when you get to the store, there are none at that price. All that's available are widgets that cost twice as much. Bait and switch is, essentially, promising something but delivering something else that is either inferior or more costly. Today's DotD nominee is a case of inferior quality. eHowian Ezmeralda Lee (aka Civita Dyer) took on the topic "How to Build Your Own Submarine" for Sciencing.com, and delivered something wildly different... not to mention scientifically illiterate.

Mauna Loa for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCIII

1984 eruption of Mauna Loa

If we've learned one tiny thing from our years of skewering greedy freelancers, it's that a little knowledge can be a bad thing. We were reminded of that recently when one of the staffers came across a handful of puzzling statements in a post written by someone who claims to be a science writer (but has a BA in Fine Arts). While Phil Whitmer did a fair job of rewording content from more authoritative material for his Sciencing.com post, "Volcanic Rock Types by Mauna Loa," a few of his statements made it pretty obvious that he was just performing a copy-reword-paste job.

Convergent Boundaries for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMXCV

Nazca, Pacific Plate relationship

During its short life as animated television, "The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky and Friends" regularly featured something the punny types writing for the show called "fractured fairy tales." The fairy tales looked familiar, but details were changed to update the stories and dovetail with the rather satirical nature of the show. A lot of eHow's contributors, eager to cash in on their "writing" skills, contributed mightily to the stupidification of the internet in a similar fashion. Their "fractured factoids," as we call them, resulted from their ignorance of their topics combined with a general willingness to say just about anything to collect a few bucks from the mother lode of misinformation. Today's example? Cathel Hutchison and his Sciencing.com post, "Facts on Convergent Boundaries."¹