Why is this sentence in bold?

HowToBe

The Living Force
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/237568-Psychologists-Defend-The-Importance-Of-General-Abilities

I'm sometimes curious about why certain sentences are chosen to be highlighted in bold on SOTT. Like the following in the article linked above:
Challenging another "experts-are-made" contention - that beyond a certain threshold, intelligence makes less and less of a difference in accomplishment - the authors cite a study by Vanderbilt University researchers that looked at the math SAT scores of people with PhDs in science, technology, engineering, or math.
(Bold by SOTT editors.)

The other bold/highlighted sections of that article are statements that are supported by the rest of the article, but the one I've quoted is an idea that their research challenges. So why is that section highlighted? Is it a mistake?

More generally, I'm curious about the reasons for bolding/highlighting sections of articles in general. I recognize that it often serves to highlight important points that corroborate other pieces of evidence from other articles (or add a new piece of data), but I'm curious how you decide what should be highlighted in general, and what are the different reasons for highlighting sections? Has this been answered before?
 
Hi HowToBe,

Back in February 2010 I asked a similar question via Email.
While comparing your version of this article: _http://www.sott.net/articles/show/xxxxxx with the original version on the bloggers website I noticed that you added quite a few emphases of your own - without informing your readers about that (and maybe not even the author himself).
Since I'm not in the regular habit of doing such comparisons I'm quite in the dark about how often this might occur. But I want you to know that I'm rather disappointed about such a practice which may alter the perception of the text quite substantially without any notification to the reader. Not done...
This is the reply I got from Joe:
Hi ..., the bolding serves to highlight the main points of the article for those wishing to skim through. I fail to see how doing so "may alter the perception of the text quite substantially"
I take it this answer still stands.

Hope this helps.
 
Palinurus said:
I take it this answer still stands.

Hope this helps.

Well, not in this case. In this case, there was no reason to bold the part that howtobe highlighted. So the bold has been removed. As for bolding on Sott.net articles in general, yes, the first answer I gave you stands. We reserve the right to highlight certain aspects of certain articles that the original author may not have highlighted. The point being to emphasize certain points or ideas that Sott.net editors deem important. It's a service to readers who trust Sott.net.
 
Perceval said:
Palinurus said:
I take it this answer still stands.

Hope this helps.

Well, not in this case. In this case, there was no reason to bold the part that howtobe highlighted. So the bold has been removed. As for bolding on Sott.net articles in general, yes, the first answer I gave you stands. We reserve the right to highlight certain aspects of certain articles that the original author may not have highlighted. The point being to emphasize certain points or ideas that Sott.net editors deem important. It's a service to readers who trust Sott.net.

Indeed. It often happens that reporters will (intentionally or not) minimize details which are very significant in an article, and as readers we are often left to wonder why they sent this or that piece of vital data to the second last paragraph. Highlighting helps us fight that 'bias' without altering the actual article. It is another way of making a comment on it, as in "Did you notice this very interesting bit??"
 
Back
Top Bottom