The topic of my research discusses the defamation of Professor Hwang Woo-Suk of Seoul National University. His team along with him claimed in 2005 that they were able to use the cloning techniques to create eleven patient specific stem cells this claim earned him the title of the “Supreme Scientist” in Korea. However, his research was proved to be falsified and he was held responsible for fabricating information. People believed that there were several reasons which forced Hwang Woo-Suk to take this step amongst those reasons were; a need for personal fame, monetary gains, and national pride to categorize a few. Proponents of the Professor argued that it was his desire to earn a name for Korea in the field of biomedicine which triggered this behavior. Adding to this research it was identified that Hwang Woo-Suk was determined to stabilize the Korean economy and his action could mean an upheaval in the field of biomedicine similar to the contributions made by the IT and semiconductor industries. However, this pathway to achieving fame proved to be highly disastrous for the Professor’s career since he was fired from his position as lecturer at SNU along with being sentenced for two years for embezzling from the research funds and the illegal purchase of human eggs.
For the purpose of researching the aforementioned topic I used three major resources including; Lion Search, Google and Database. Beginning with Lion Search it helped the ease of my research process as I just had to type the keyword “Hwang Woo-Suk” and all the related online resources which were relevant to my topic propped up in a matter of few seconds. Apart from the ease of all online resources being available on one platform, Lion Search allowed access to journals which would not be accessible without formal permission from the relevant authorities for example: The East Asian Science, Technology and Society.
Moving on, Google is a search engine where backdated or latest newspaper articles, websites which contain the keyword or personal opinions of people on blogs etc can be retrieved from under one search category. But one thing was kept into consideration that only those sources were used which were only three years old, all other data was ignored for validity and authenticity purposes. Google even displays books and eases the research by providing reviews and summaries of books. However, the greatest drawback of Google is that it provides information on a vast range of topics related to the subject under study and it is a tedious task to narrow down the information and filter out relevant information. Apart from this the authenticity of articles and news features is questionable because everything on the web is displayed. Lastly, databases helped in the retrieval of scholarly articles. Using a database can help sieve out unauthentic information which helps in making a research reliable and valid. But databases are not the most efficient form of resource as far as using them for research purposes is concerned.
Databases might exclude important information which can greatly limit the scope of the research being conducted. Hence, that information regarding Hwang Woo-Suk not in the database might have been ignored if other forms of validation were not used. Adding on, databases may not be checked for the validity the information may not be authenticated which can negatively impact the research.
The usefulness of the resources mentioned above were relevant to my study area, along with this I ensured that the flaws and drawbacks of one source were covered by the strengths of another. This assured me that my research was valid and could be treated as a reliable source.
