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Whenever you buy a new Apple device, you will have the option to pay an additional fee for something known as “AppleCare+” The asking price for this offer isn’t insignificant, so is it really worth it?
Let’s look at what exactly Apple is selling with AppleCare+ and whether you’d be better off spending your money elsewhere.
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How Is AppleCare Different From The Standard AppleCare Warranty?Apple devices generally come with a standard 1-year warranty which is simply referred to as “AppleCare”. But what is AppleCare?This warranty covers you against manufacturing defects and not against any sort of accidental damage. In other words, if Apple messed up and your device develops a problem, not due to your abuse, then they will fix or replace the device at no cost to you.
Some specific components are warrantied for longer than a year, depending on the device you have. For example, all MacBooks with the butterfly keyboard switch design have a keyboard warranty of four years from the date of purchase.
Similarly, certain MacBook models that suffer degradation of their anti-reflective screen coating are eligible for display replacements for up to four years from purchase as well.
AppleCare+ is often described as a sort of extended warranty. While it does extend the standard warranty, there’s quite a bit more to AppleCare+ than just a longer AppleCare period.
What Do You Get With AppleCare+?During that extended time, you’ll get the full cover of the standard warranty. This means any manufacturing defect will be repaired for free. However, you also get two accidental event coverages, but these aren’t entirely free. You’ll pay a fixed amount for certain repairs, but nothing more than that. For example, if you break your iPhone screen the repair cost is $29.99 at the time of writing.
Apart from a longer standard warranty and heavily discounted repair bill, you can also add theft and loss coverage to iPhones by buying the more expensive AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss package. This is basically an insurance add-on that means you pay a fixed deductible amount if you need to claim for a new phone.
Apart from all this hardware coverage, AppleCare+ customers also get priority tech support for the full duration of the plan. Whereas you only get 90 days of complimentary coverage with a new Apple product.
AppleCare vs InsuranceSince AppleCare+ offers coverage for accidental damage, it means you need to compare it to other insurance options. For iPhone users, it’s even more appropriate since you can also pay for additional theft and loss coverage which is not included in standard AppleCare+.
The big difference here is that you pay a one-off fee for the protection plan. With insurance, you’ll pay a monthly coverage fee, which you can stop at any time. So you’ll have to compare the once-off cost against the total cost of insurance over the course of the number of years your AppleCare+ plan would cover the device. Be sure to also compare deductibles and the number of incidents covered.
It’s also worth remembering that the AppleCare+ price also includes other perks, such as warranty extension. So an apple-to-apples cost comparison isn’t really possible.
What Does AppleCare+ Cost?There is no fixed answer to this question. Apple charges different amounts for its AppleCare+ coverage depending on the device and sometimes even the specific model. You can generally expect a price somewhere around the $200 mark, but you’ll need to confirm this for each individual case.
Do I Have to Buy it Immediately?One of the biggest problems with AppleCare+ is that you are already spending a heap of money on your new Apple goodie and spending a few hundred bucks on something intangible is often a hard pill to swallow. Luckily, it has never been the case that you have to buy it right away.
Originally, iPhone users had 60 days from initial purchase to upgrade. Mac users had a full year to take the plunge, so it made sense to wait until the standard warranty is about to run out before buying AppleCare+. In 2023 Apple extended the same 1-year time period to iPhone users as well.
Eligibility varies by device and country, so be sure to use the official Apple Eligibility Checker to make sure how long you have to buy AppleCare+.
Arguments FOR AppleCare+So what are some strong reasons to shell out for AppleCare+? Oddly enough, it turns out that the extension of the standard AppleCare warranty may very well be the most valuable aspect of the AppleCare+ offer after all.
Why? Well, insurance will cover accidental damage, loss, or theft, but it won’t cover device failures that are out of warranty. The sort that Apple will fix for free under warranty. These can be incredibly expensive. For example, if your MacBook’s logic board fails and needs to be replaced, it could cost more than $1,000! Often in these cases, people simply opt to buy a whole new laptop, but if you pay the (relatively) small AppleCare+ fee then that repair will cost you just about nothing.
The chances of that sort of component failure over the course of 2-3 years aren’t trivial. Especially with MacBooks, which run hot and have exhibited a whole host of issues over the years. Yes, if an issue is widespread then Apple will usually cover it regardless, but only AppleCare+ is going to cover your bad luck with getting a lemon off the assembly line.
The other major plus point may also surprise you, but it’s the included technical support. Having a direct line to Apple can be invaluable, especially if your device is essential for work purposes.
Arguments AGAINST AppleCare+The weakest part of the AppleCare+ offering is the accidental repair coverage. You need to do some serious comparative shopping with third-party insurance companies.
Phone carriers often also offer in-house insurance for iPhones bought on contract. Your household insurance is likely to make you a better offer for similar coverage as this component of AppleCare+, so be sure to get some quotations before pulling the trigger on the Apple offering.
The Bottom LineWe think that, based on the extended warranty alone, AppleCare+ is worth it. The main reason for this is how tightly Apple controls the aftermarket repair industry of its products and how expensive out-of-warranty repairs can be. So getting 2-3 years of warranty coverage is well worth the asking price.
In normal use, Apple devices rarely give any trouble, but there are enough horror stories out there that this peace of mind is worth the price.
If you’re happy to roll the dice on Apple’s hardware quality, but don’t trust yourself not to accidentally damage or lose the unit, then it’s more likely you’ll get a better deal from a third-party insurer. Especially one you are already using for home insurance, which will net you better rates, where you aren’t subsidizing the behavior of other, riskier customers.
It also means you aren’t pre-paying for years of coverage you may not use if the phone gets sold or upgraded before the AppleCare+ period runs out.
You're reading S2M Explains : What Is Applecare+ & Is It Worth It?
Ott Explains: What Is Ray Tracing?
In the past, ray tracing was limited to massive computer graphics projects, such as Hollywood CG films. Now it’s found in PC gaming and soon, next generation gaming consoles.
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To understand why this has so many people excited, we need to compare ray-traced graphics to the mainstream graphics rendering method that’s been used until now: rasterization.
Rasterization vs Ray TracingModern real-time computer graphics look amazing! It’s hard to imagine that it has anything to do with the basic 3D graphics from twenty or thirty years ago. The truth is that a console like the Playstation 1 and the current Playstation 4 use the same basic method of rendering 3D graphics and then putting it on your 2D screen.
This is known as rasterization. A “raster” is an image shown as a grid of pixels, which is exactly what your screen displays. Rasterization is the process of converting a 3D scene into a 2D image on a screen.
This needs to be done, because the 3D scene is, well, 3D. It has depth, so the virtual objects can move past each other and be looked at from any point of view. In the process of rasterization, the computer has to figure out what that scene would look like if your screen was basically a window into that 3D world.
In real life, a scene has texture and lighting, as well as shape, depth and size. Since simulating light has traditionally taken more computer power than any home computer is capable of, programmers have created tricks and shortcuts to create something that looks close to real light, color and texture using this process of rasterization.
Ray tracing is, in one way, much simpler. Instead of trying to use a long list of tricks to create the illusion of real ight, it simulates real light instead. Now when the computer has to figure out what the scene would look like seen through the “window” of your screen, it just runs the ray tracing simulation and it all works out.
In the real world, the rays of light entering your eye have bounced off everything else you are looking at before reaching your retinas. Ray tracing achieves the same result in a more efficient way. It does this by shooting simulated “rays” of light from the “camera” and letting it bounce around the virtual scene, picking up color and brightness information on the way. Your screen represents the virtual eye, so you see a truly realistic virtual world.
By using ray tracing, a single technique creates objects, reflections, shadows and other elements of a scene that look real. That realism happens naturally as a result of the simulation, no tricks or shortcuts needed!
Where To Experience Ray TracingIf you want to see ray tracing in action, all you have to do is watch any modern movie that uses computer-generated graphics. If you watch a CG film such as Toy Story 4, everything you’re seeing is a product of ray tracing.
If you want to explore an interactive ray-traced world, there’s currently only one game in town. The RTX series of Nvidia GPUs, along with video games and apps that support this technology. You can run some ray-tracing applications with non-RTX hardware, but you won’t get good performance. Be sure to check out our article on the best games that show off RTX hardware.
The problem is that RTX hardware is still quite expensive. However, the upcoming generation of video game consoles have a form of ray-tracing support. Which means that the mainstream gaming world may help turn ray-tracing into the next major gaming technology. Still, if ray-tracing is so difficult to do in real time, how do these new GPUs manage it?
How Is Real Time Ray Tracing Achieved?Any computer can render a 3D scene using ray tracing. People who work with 3D rendering packages have been doing it for years. Any modern CPU can perform the actual calculations needed to trace the path of light around the scene.
However, modern CPUs and GPUs can’t crunch those numbers quickly enough to generate an image in real time. For example, the massive computer farms used to make films such as Monsters Inc or Toy Story take hours to render a single frame of the final product.
Modern video games, by contrast, need to generate at least thirty frames of images every second to be considered playable, with the gold standard currently set around the 60 frames per second mark.
So how can GPUs such as the Nvidia RTX series manage to use the ray-tracing method at playable frame rates? The answer is that they don’t use ray tracing for everything. At least not in modern titles.
The trick is to combine traditional graphics with selective ray-tracing. The RTX cards have dedicated ray-tracing hardware that sits along a more traditional GPU. In this way, ray-tracing can be used to compensate for some of the shortcomings of traditional graphics hardware.
There are video games you can play with an RTX card that are fully ray-traced. The best example is Quake II RTX. This is a decades-old video game that is simple enough that full real-time ray-tracing is possible. When it comes to applying pure ray-tracing to current video games however, it will still be years before such hardware becomes mainstream.
Is Ray Tracing the Future?The short answer is yes, ray tracing is the future. The longer answer is that as hardware that makes real-time ray tracing possible becomes cheaper, we’ll probably see it replace traditional rendering bit by bit. If ray-traced graphics become a normal part of the new console generation, there will be no going back.
Developers can safely include ray-tracing features in their titles, because all popular platforms will support it. Since ray-traced graphics are superior, the stars really are aligning for the arrival of ray-tracing on affordable hardware. Which means that true photorealism may finally be here.
The other major sign that ray-tracing will become a mainstream rendering method is how it’s now being included in the common tools that developers use to make video games and other 3D applications. In other words, it’s no longer necessary for developers to invent their own ray-tracing solutions.
Popular graphics engines such as Unreal Engine 4 or Frostbite now include support for RTX hardware-accelerated ray-tracing. Making it much more likely that developers will include it as an option for their titles.
Should You Buy Into Ray Tracing Now?At the time of writing, we are still at the first-generation of ray-tracing hardware. While prices have come down, performance is still pretty mediocre. If you’re a hardcore, early adopter then there’s plenty to like about ray-tracing on PC.
If you aren’t willing to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars as an early adopter, it’s better to invest in the next generation of mainstream consoles which promise to feature the technology, or wait for the successor to the RTX 20-series cards.
Nerdschalk Explains: What Is Proof Of Authority?
Much ado has been made, and rightfully so, about the consensus algorithms that blockchains operate by in order to build and maintain their transactional ledger. While Bitcoin revolutionized the concept of a virtual currency through its Proof of Work consensus algorithm, as the currency soared in value and the network exploded in popularity and transaction volume, it became clear that some very prominent limitations faced Proof of Work and its ability to scale.
In response to the trials and tribulations of Proof of Work, numerous other consensus algorithms have been developed and put to use on other blockchains. You’ve probably heard of Proof of Stake, currently held up as the most viable successor to the Proof of Work protocol, but even Proof of Stake is not without its own trade-offs.
Related: How to Make and Sell NFT Art: Step-by-Step Guide
In this article, we’ll explore another consensus algorithm currently being put to use by the likes of JP Morgan and others known as the Proof of Authority Protocol and discuss how it holds up against Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
Let’s examine the actual process of the Proof of Authority protocol and compare it with the strengths and weaknesses of similar consensus algorithms.
How Proof of Authority Works
Proof of Authority boils down to leaving block validation in the hands of a select few, preselected nodes rather than having every node on the network process and verify transactions before adding them to the historical record. Rather than having nodes race to solve computationally-intensive cryptographic puzzles in order to validate blocks, like with Proof of Work, or having them stake actual currency in order to discourage any malicious behavior, as with Proof of Stake, preselected validator nodes in a network are essentially staking their reputation.
The crux of a Proof of Authority consensus algorithm is that the identities of validator nodes are publicly known, and thus it would be extremely detrimental to the validator to engage in fraudulent or malicious behavior because they could be easily found or targeted with legal repercussions or, at the very least, a severe blow to their own reputation alongside the loss of validator status.
For Proof of Authority algorithms to work, the identity verification and selection processes must be extremely rigorous. The harder it is to become a validator node, the less incentivized the node is to engage in any undesirable behavior.
For example, let’s say you underwent a six-month identity verification process that certified you as one of but a few validators, giving you the authority to deem transactions valid and reap the transaction fees as a reward, and you decided to try and reward yourself with $1 billion through a bogus transaction. Other approved validators on the network have equivalent power and the ability o dispute a transaction.
Once confirmed to be fraudulent, the transaction would not only be invalidated but your status as a validator would almost certainly be revoked and you, given that your identity is publicly known, may be subject to further ramifications. This foreseeable result of an attempt to misuse your authority is what disincentivizes bad behavior.
Related: Trezor vs. Ledger in 2023: Which One To Choose?
Benefits of Proof of Authority
One of the primary benefits of running a Proof of Authority consensus algorithm is that, unlike Proof of Work, it uses almost no computational power. Validators simply select which transactions they want to validate without having to solve any sort of cryptographic puzzles or compete in a computational arms race.
The energy cost of the competitive dynamic imposed by a Proof of Work algorithm is what has led to immense concern on the environmental impact of major Proof of Work-based blockchains like Bitcoin whose network consumes more energy than the entire country of Argentina.
And unlike Proof of Stake algorithms, no amount of currency is immobilized in the process of invalidation. In a Proof of Stake algorithm like the one Ethereum has worked to shift to, potential validator’s “stake” a certain amount of currency to serve as collateral, thereby guarding against malicious behavior. The more a validator is willing to stake, the greater the chances of being selected to “forge” a block, adding transaction data to the chain.
However, many have pointed out that Proof of Stake, as it currently exists, does not incorporate the total size of a potential validator’s holdings into its selection process. This means that while the staked currency from one validator may vastly exceed another’s, it may proportionately be much less to lose, thus serving as a much weaker deterrent.
Private blockchains that rely on their own Proof of Authority algorithms do not require chain-native fungible assets like Ethereum’s Ether, Cardano’s ADA, or Polkadot’s Dots to incentivize validation. Validators can simply be paid flat salaries as part of an organization using the blockchain or they can be given a cut of the transaction fees directly.
This makes it a suitable candidate for those looking to leverage the immutable ledger capabilities that blockchain provides. Indeed companies like JP Morgan utilize private, proof-of-authority blockchains for accounting purposes.
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Proof of Authority Limitations
Thus far, Proof of Authority may sound like an immensely superior protocol to Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, but it sports a few glaring trade-offs that many argue make it a poor choice for public blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Chief among these concerns is the fact that leaving the power of validation in a select few entities is precisely the sort of centralization that blockchain technology set out to avoid.
Much of the security promises that the centralized networks make Are centered on the Eradication of a third-party to adjudicate transactions between entities. Blockchain is innately supposed to provide a trustless environment in which makes changes can be made quickly and without exposing sensitive information to any other party – including the other participant in the exchange.
This poses a few key security risks that many argue are incompatible with a public, permissionless blockchain. It does however leave Proof of Authority as a strong candidate for situations like the aforementioned JP Morgan blockchain as well as other blockchain-based POA services like Hyperledger or VeChain. Thus, while Proof of Authority may not replace Proof of Stake in its entirety, there are specific use-cases in which a Proof of Authority consensus algorithm can be the perfect security protocol for the job.
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Hdg Explains : What Is A Dedicated Ip Address & Should I Get One?
Most people are under the assumption that when you sign for a hosting plan, you get your own IP address, but that’s not true. The truth is you need to sign up for a dedicated IP address for that. But what is a dedicated IP address?
Most hosting packages will give you an IP address that’s shared by a number of other customers. This means that the bandwidth for internet traffic is stretched across multiple websites.
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In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at the difference between a dedicated IP and a shared hosting account, and explain whether it’s worth getting a dedicated IP or not.
What Is a Dedicated IP Address In Hosting?Most typical hosting plans come at a low price because the hosting company can place multiple hosting accounts at the same IP address. This means that one server is essentially dedicated to multiple different customers.
A dedicated IP address is different and it means you’ll have your very own IP address, or server, dedicated to your one account. It costs more for a dedicated IP address because the hosting provider must reserve more server resources for just one customer, but it usually comes with a number of benefits.
What Are The Benefits of Using a Dedicated IP Address For Your Website?When you’re on a shared plan, your IP address is shared with other customers. Your privacy and account details are safe and there’s no way to know who is sharing an IP address with you. But using a shared IP address does pose a risk to your website performance.
Firstly, because there could be multiple websites with incoming traffic hosted on a single server, bandwidth has to be managed. The peak maximum upload and download speeds are often restricted to very specific levels with these hosting plans so that the servers don’t become overloaded.
Unfortunately that means that if you hit a spike in traffic from a viral post or a well performing article on Google for example, traffic may be throttled. Users may have to wait longer for your website to load so that your site isn’t causing issues to other customers sharing your same IP address.
This can have a huge negative impact on your user retention. Page speed score is important. So upgrading to a dedicated IP address can stop this issue from ever happening.
Another negative drawback to using a shared hosting plan is that you may risk interference to your website performance as a result of other customer activity.
As we explained above, website traffic is throttled which means if things work like they should, you shouldn’t see any drastic performance issues if a customer sharing your IP address suddenly has a surge in traffic. But technology doesn’t always work as expected, and there’s no guaranteeing other customer activity may not cause issues.
One example could be if a customer sharing your IP address is targeted by a DDOS attack. Because you’re sharing a server with that customer, your website could have connectivity issues.
Another issue with shared plan hosting is that it’s not just the server network speeds that are shared. You also have to share other system resources, including storage. Because of this, shared IP hosting often limits a user’s storage size quite significantly, so you’ll have trouble expanding your website in the future if you keep uploading new content.
Of course, a dedicated IP address will resolve all of these problems. With a dedicated IP address, all system resources are dedicated only to you, including network speed, memory, and storage space.
Not all servers are built the same, so even if you plan to have your own dedicated IP Address, you must make sure the server has the right hardware and network requirements to manage your website and incoming traffic.
Dedicated IP hosting also has other benefits. Because you are the sole customer using that server, you are given greater control over how it operates because you won’t impact any other customer’s experience. You can control how your storage is distributed across your websites and manage network performance so you’re always ready to endure any sudden spikes in traffic.
Different hosting accounts offer different levels of support, so it may mean that owning a dedicated IP address requires more manual maintenance. But you’ll need to check with each server hosting provider to find out more details about that.
Dedicated IP vs Shared Hosting – Which Is Better?It should be clear that a dedicated IP address has a number of benefits over shared hosting, but is it always the clear choice? Below we’ve taken a look at pricing and performance differences between dedicated IP hosting and shared server hosting on Bluehost, a popular provider.
The Stats of Dedicated IP Hosting
Pricing from $119.99-$209.99
4 Cores @ 2.3GHz – 3.3GHz
500GB to 1TB mirrored storage
4GB-16GB RAM
5TB-15TB bandwidth
3-5 unique IP addresses
The Stats of Shared Hosting
Pricing from $7.99-$23.99
No dedicated IP address
Storage, performance, and network throttled
Bluehost uses terms like “unlimited” or “unmetered” for its bandwidth and storage. What that means is that Bluehost monitors the average performance of their customers on shared plans and ensures that their servers can support the customers using it based on this data. And while your bandwidth and storage is technically unlimited, if you go outside of what they consider normal usage, Bluehost will contact you and ask you to tone it down a little bit.
For most people, the cost difference alone is why shared hosting is more than enough. Unless you’re running a popular website, dedicated hosting isn’t nessacary. But if you start to ramp up more traffic, upgrading to dedicated hosting can be a worthwhile investment.
What Is Peer Review?
Peer review, sometimes referred to as refereeing, is the process of evaluating submissions to an academic journal. Using strict criteria, a panel of reviewers in the same subject area decides whether to accept each submission for publication.
Peer-reviewed articles are considered a highly credible source due to the stringent process they go through before publication.
There are various types of peer review. The main difference between them is to what extent the authors, reviewers, and editors know each other’s identities. The most common types are:
Relatedly, peer assessment is a process where your peers provide you with feedback on something you’ve written, based on a set of criteria or benchmarks from an instructor. They then give constructive feedback, compliments, or guidance to help you improve your draft.
What is the purpose of peer review?Many academic fields use peer review, largely to determine whether a manuscript is suitable for publication. Peer review enhances the credibility of the manuscript. For this reason, academic journals are among the most credible sources you can refer to.
However, peer review is also common in non-academic settings. The United Nations, the European Union, and many individual nations use peer review to evaluate grant applications. It is also widely used in medical and health-related fields as a teaching or quality-of-care measure.
Peer assessment is often used in the classroom as a pedagogical tool. Both receiving feedback and providing it are thought to enhance the learning process, helping students think critically and collaboratively.
Types of peer reviewDepending on the journal, there are several types of peer review.
Single-blind peer reviewThe most common type of peer review is single-blind (or single anonymized) review. Here, the names of the reviewers are not known by the author.
Double-blind peer reviewIn double-blind (or double anonymized) review, both the author and the reviewers are anonymous.
Triple-blind peer reviewWhile triple-blind (or triple anonymized) review—where the identities of the author, reviewers, and editors are all anonymized—does exist, it is difficult to carry out in practice.
Proponents of adopting triple-blind review for journal submissions argue that it minimizes potential conflicts of interest and biases. However, ensuring anonymity is logistically challenging, and current editing software is not always able to fully anonymize everyone involved in the process.
Collaborative reviewIn collaborative review, authors and reviewers interact with each other directly throughout the process. However, the identity of the reviewer is not known to the author. This gives all parties the opportunity to resolve any inconsistencies or contradictions in real time, and provides them a rich forum for discussion. It can mitigate the need for multiple rounds of editing and minimize back-and-forth.
Collaborative review can be time- and resource-intensive for the journal, however. For these collaborations to occur, there has to be a set system in place, often a technological platform, with staff monitoring and fixing any bugs or glitches.
Open reviewLastly, in open review, all parties know each other’s identities throughout the process. Often, open review can also include feedback from a larger audience, such as an online forum, or reviewer feedback included as part of the final published product.
What can proofreading do for your paper?Scribbr editors not only correct grammar and spelling mistakes, but also strengthen your writing by making sure your paper is free of vague language, redundant words, and awkward phrasing.
See editing example
The peer review processIn general, the peer review process includes the following steps:
First, the author submits the manuscript to the editor.
The editor can either:
Reject the manuscript and send it back to the author, or
Send it onward to the selected peer reviewer(s)
Lastly, the edited manuscript is sent back to the author. They input the edits and resubmit it to the editor for publication.
Note: While this is generally the process, each journal has a slightly different peer review process. If you’re interested in publishing in a particular journal, make sure to read their peer review guidelines carefully!
In an effort to be transparent, many journals are now disclosing who reviewed each article in the published product. There are also increasing opportunities for collaboration and feedback, with some journals allowing open communication between reviewers and authors.
Providing feedback to your peersIt can seem daunting at first to conduct a peer review or peer assessment. If you’re not sure where to start, there are several best practices you can use.
Summarize the argument in your own wordsSummarizing the main argument helps the author see how their argument is interpreted by readers, and gives you a jumping-off point for providing feedback. If you’re having trouble doing this, it’s a sign that the argument needs to be clearer, more concise, or worded differently.
If the author sees that you’ve interpreted their argument differently than they intended, they have an opportunity to address any misunderstandings when they get the manuscript back.
Separate your feedback into major and minor issuesIt can be challenging to keep feedback organized. One strategy is to start out with any major issues and then flow into the more minor points. It’s often helpful to keep your feedback in a numbered list, so the author has concrete points to refer back to.
Major issues typically consist of any problems with the style, flow, or key points of the manuscript. Minor issues include spelling errors, citation errors, or other smaller, easy-to-apply feedback.
Tip: Try not to focus too much on the minor issues. If the manuscript has a lot of typos, consider making a note that the author should address spelling and grammar issues, rather than going through and fixing each one.
The best feedback you can provide is anything that helps them strengthen their argument or resolve major stylistic issues.
Give the type of feedback that you would like to receiveNo one likes being criticized, and it can be difficult to give honest feedback without sounding overly harsh or critical. One strategy you can use here is the “compliment sandwich,” where you “sandwich” your constructive criticism between two compliments.
Be sure you are giving concrete, actionable feedback that will help the author submit a successful final draft. While you shouldn’t tell them exactly what they should do, your feedback should help them resolve any issues they may have overlooked.
As a rule of thumb, your feedback should be:
Easy to understand
Thorough
Constructive
Peer review exampleBelow is a brief annotated research example. You can view examples of peer feedback by hovering over the highlighted sections.
Studies show that teens from the US are getting less sleep than they were a decade ago (Johnson, 2023). On average, teens only slept for 6 hours a night in 2023, compared to 8 hours a night in 2011. Johnson mentions several potential causes, such as increased anxiety, changed diets, and increased phone use.
The current study focuses on the effect phone use before bedtime has on the number of hours of sleep teens are getting.
For this study, a sample of 300 teens was recruited using social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. The first week, all teens were allowed to use their phone the way they normally would, in order to obtain a baseline.
The sample was then divided into 3 groups:
Group 1 was not allowed to use their phone before bedtime.
Group 2 used their phone for 1 hour before bedtime.
Group 3 used their phone for 3 hours before bedtime.
All participants were asked to go to sleep around 10 p.m. to control for variation in bedtime. In the morning, their Fitbit showed the number of hours they’d slept. They kept track of these numbers themselves for 1 week.
This shows that teens sleep fewer hours a night if they use their phone for over an hour before bedtime, compared to teens who use their phone for 0 to 1 hours.
Advantages of peer reviewPeer review is an established and hallowed process in academia, dating back hundreds of years. It provides various fields of study with metrics, expectations, and guidance to ensure published work is consistent with predetermined standards.
Protects the quality of published research
Peer review can stop obviously problematic, falsified, or otherwise untrustworthy research from being published. Any content that raises red flags for reviewers can be closely examined in the review stage, preventing plagiarized or duplicated research from being published.
Gives you access to feedback from experts in your field
Peer review represents an excellent opportunity to get feedback from renowned experts in your field and to improve your writing through their feedback and guidance. Experts with knowledge about your subject matter can give you feedback on both style and content, and they may also suggest avenues for further research that you hadn’t yet considered.
Helps you identify any weaknesses in your argument
Peer review acts as a first defense, helping you ensure your argument is clear and that there are no gaps, vague terms, or unanswered questions for readers who weren’t involved in the research process. This way, you’ll end up with a more robust, more cohesive article.
Criticisms of peer reviewWhile peer review is a widely accepted metric for credibility, it’s not without its drawbacks.
Reviewer bias
The more transparent double-blind system is not yet very common, which can lead to bias in reviewing. A common criticism is that an excellent paper by a new researcher may be declined, while an objectively lower-quality submission by an established researcher would be accepted.
Delays in publication
The thoroughness of the peer review process can lead to significant delays in publishing time. Research that was current at the time of submission may not be as current by the time it’s published. There is also high risk of publication bias, where journals are more likely to publish studies with positive findings than studies with negative findings.
Risk of human error
By its very nature, peer review carries a risk of human error. In particular, falsification often cannot be detected, given that reviewers would have to replicate entire experiments to ensure the validity of results.
Other interesting articlesIf you want to know more about statistics, methodology, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
Frequently asked questions about peer reviews Cite this Scribbr articleGeorge, T. Retrieved July 10, 2023,
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What Is Data Scraping?
The amount and range of data that is accessible online in the modern era is enormous, which makes it a gold mine of significant insights for corporations, researchers, and consumers. However, you must compile specific details before accessing the most valuable data elements. Data scraping, commonly called web scraping, has become a powerful method for obtaining and extracting this data from numerous online sources. This article reviews data scraping tools, how it works, its benefits, challenges, tools, and more.
What is Data Scraping?It entails using automated programs or scripts to extract detailed data from web pages, including text, photos, tables, links, and other structured data. Data scraping enables users to gather data from several websites simultaneously, reducing the effort and time required compared to traditional data collection.
Web scraping software (commonly known as “bots”) is constructed to explore websites, scrape the relevant pages, and extract meaningful data. This software can handle large amounts of data by automating and streamlining this process.
How Does Data Scraping Work? Benefits of Data ScrapingSome of the benefits of data scraping include the following:
Improved Decision MakingBusinesses can maintain competitiveness by using data scraping to comprehend market dynamics and determine prices.
Cost SavingsData extraction by hand requires extensive staff and sizable resources because it is expensive. Web scraping has, however, addressed this issue similarly to how numerous other online techniques have.
The various services available on the marketplace achieve this while being cost-effective and budget-friendly. However, it all depends upon the data volume required, the extraction techniques’ efficiency, and your goals. A web scraping API is one of the most popular online scraping techniques for cost optimization.
Data scraping may prove to be a cost-effective data collection method, particularly for individuals and small enterprises who do not have the financial resources to buy expensive data sets.
Time SavingsData scraping dramatically decreases the time and effort needed to obtain data collected from websites by automating the data-gathering processes. It makes it possible to effortlessly retrieve information, extract it simultaneously, handle vast quantities of data, manage ongoing operations, and integrate with current workflows, eventually resulting in time savings and increased productivity.
Once a script or tool for scraping has been created, it can be used for websites or data sources that are similar to them. It saves time by avoiding making a brand-new data-gathering procedure from scratch every time.
Enhanced ProductivityWhen web scraping is executed effectively, it increases the productivity of the sales and marketing departments. The marketing group can use relevant web scraping data to understand how a product works. The marketing team can create novel, enhanced marketing plans that meet consumer demands.
The teams may create targeted strategies and gain better insights using data gathered from web scraping. Additionally, the data collected positively influences how marketing tactics are implemented into execution. The sales staff can also determine which target audience group is likely to earn a profit and from where income grows. After that, the sales staff can closely monitor the sale to maximize profits.
Competitive AdvantageWeb scraping can be an excellent approach to getting the information you require for competitor research. Data scraping might allow you to organize and represent relevant and useful data while assisting you in quickly gathering competitive data.
Data scraping may benefit you in gathering data on competitors, such as:
URLs of Competitors’ Websites
Contact Details
Social Networking Accounts and Followers
Advertising and Competitive Prices
Comparing Products and Services
The data can be easily exported chúng tôi files once it has been gathered. Data visualization software can help you discuss what you discover with other organization members.
Why Scrape Website Data?Using data scraping, you can gather specific items from many websites, including product specifications, cost particulars, client feedback, current events, and any additional relevant data. This accessibility to various sources offers insightful data and expertise that may be used for several goals.
The tools and techniques generally used for data scraping are as follows:
Web scraper software can be used to manually or automatically explore novel data. They retrieve the most recent or new data, store them, and make them accessible. These tools benefit any individual seeking to gather data from a website. Here are some of the well-known data scraping tools and software:
Mozenda is a data extraction tool that facilitates gathering data from websites. Additionally, they offer services for data visualization.
Data Scraping Studio is a free web scraping tool for extracting data from websites, HTML, XML, and PDF documents. Only Windows users can presently access the desktop version.
The Web Scraper API from Oxylabs is made to gather real-time accessible website information from almost every website. It is a dependable tool for fast and reliable retrieval of data.
Diffbot is among the best data extraction tools available today. It enables you to extract products, posts, discussions, videos, or photographs from web pages using the Analyze API capability that automatically recognizes the pages.
Octoparse serves as a user-friendly, no-code web scraping tool. It also provides cloud storage to store the information that has been extracted and helps by giving IP rotation to prevent IP addresses from being blacklisted. Scraping can be scheduled for any particular time. Additionally, it has an endless scrolling feature. CSV, Excel, and API formats are all available for download results.
Web Scraping APIsWeb scraping APIs are specialized APIs created to make web scraping tasks easier. They simplify online scraping by offering a structured, automated mechanism to access and retrieve website data. Some known web scraping APIs are as follows:
ParseHub API: ParseHub is a web scraping platform that provides an API for developers to communicate with their scraping system. With the help of the ParseHub API, users may conduct scraping projects, manage them, access the data they’ve collected, and carry out several other programmed tasks.
Apify API: Apify is an online automation and scraping service that offers developers access to its crawling and scapping features via an API. The Apify API enables users to programmatically configure proxies and demand headers, organize and execute scraping processes, retrieve scraped data, and carry out other functions.
Import.io API: chúng tôi is a cloud-based service for collecting data, and it provides developers with an API so they can incorporate scraping functionality into their apps. Users can create and regulate scraping tasks, obtain scraped data, and implement data integration and modification operations using the chúng tôi API.
Scraping with Programming LanguagesSpecific coding languages and their available libraries and software which can be used for data scraping are as follows:
Python
BeautifulSoup: A library that makes navigating through and retrieving data from HTML and XML pages simple.
Scrapy: A robust web scraping platform that manages challenging scraping operations, such as website crawling, pagination, and data retrieval.
Requests: A library that allows users to interface with web APIs and send HTTP requests, enabling data retrieval from API-enabled websites.
JavaScript
Puppeteer: A chúng tôi library that manages headless Chrome or Chromium browsers to enable dynamic site scraping and JavaScript processing.
Cheerio: A jQuery-inspired, quick, and adaptable library for chúng tôi that is used to parse and work with HTML/XML documents.
R
rvest: An R package that offers web scraping tools, such as CSS selection, HTML parsing, and website data retrieval.
RSelenium: An R interface to Selenium WebDriver that allows online scraping of websites that need JavaScript rendering or interactions with users.
PHP
Simple HTML DOM: A PHP package parses HTML files and uses CSS selectors to retrieve data from them.
Goutte: A PHP online scraping package that uses the Guzzle HTTP client to present an easy-to-use interface for data scraping operations.
JAVA
Jsoup: A Java package that parses HTML and XML documents and enables data collection using DOM or CSS selectors.
Selenium WebDriver: A Java-based structure that offers APIs for automating web page interactions that enable real-time web scraping.
Ruby
Nokogiri: A Ruby gem that offers a user-friendly API for processing HTML and XML documents.
Watir: A Ruby library for web scraping operations that automates browser interactions.
Best Practices for Data ScrapingThere are certain things one can do for an effective and efficient data scraping process:
Always read and follow the policies and conditions of services of the websites you are scraping.
Scraping unnecessary sites or unnecessary data could consume and waste resources and slow down the data extraction process. Targeted scraping increases efficiency by restricting the range of data extraction.
Employ caching techniques to save scraped data to avoid repeated scrapping locally.
Websites occasionally modify their layout, return errors, or add CAPTCHAs to prevent scraping efforts. Implement error-handling techniques to handle these scenarios smoothly.
Be a responsible online scraper by following every regulation and ethical rule, not overloading servers with queries, and not collecting private or sensitive data.
Maintain a constant track of the scraping procedure to ensure it works as intended. Keep an eye out for modifications to website structure, file formats, or anti-scraping methods.
Challenges and Limitations of Data ScrapingSome of the challenges and limitations of the data scraping process are as follows:
Ethical and Legal IssuesThe ethical and legal implications of data scraping can be complex. Compliance with special conditions for services or legal constraints on websites is necessary to avoid legal repercussions when extracting data. Furthermore, scraping private or confidential information without proper approval is unethical. It is fundamental to ensure that the relevant regulations and laws are followed while preserving private rights.
Frequent Updates on the WebsitesWebsites often modify their basic layout to keep up with the latest UI/UX developments and introduce new features. Frequent changes to the codes make it difficult for web scrapers to operate since they are specially developed about the code parts of the website at the stage of creation.
CAPTCHATo differentiate between humans and scraping software, individuals frequently use CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), which presents visual or logical puzzles that are simple for people to solve but challenging for scrapers. Bot developers can incorporate various CAPTCHA solutions to ensure uninterrupted scraping. While CAPTCHA-busting technology might help acquire constant data feeds, it may still cause some scraping delays.
IP BlockingWeb scrapers are frequently prevented from accessing website data by IP blocking. Most of the time, this occurs when a website notices many requests from a particular IP address. To stop the scraping operation, the website would either altogether block the IP or limit its access.
Data QualityAlthough data scraping gives users access to a wealth of data, it can be challenging to guarantee the reliability and accuracy of the data. Websites may have out-of-date or erroneous information, which may affect evaluation and assessment. Appropriate data validation, cleaning, and verification methods are required to guarantee the accuracy of the scraped data.
Use Cases of Successful Data ScrapingThe best-known real-world uses of data scraping are as follows:
Weather Forecasting ApplicationsSource: Analyticsteps
Weather forecasting businesses use data scraping to gather weather information from websites, government databases, and weather APIs. They can examine previous trends, estimate meteorological conditions, and give consumers reliable forecasts by scraping the information gathered. This makes it possible for people, organizations, and emergency response agencies to make decisions and take necessary action based on weather forecasts.
Tours and Travel AgenciesTravel brokers collect data from travel-related websites, including hotels, airlines, and car rental companies. They can provide users with thorough comparisons and guide them in locating the best offers by scraping rates, availability, and other pertinent data. Offering a single platform for obtaining data from various sources enables users to save time and effort.
Source: Datahunt
Social Media MonitoringBusinesses and companies scrape social media sites to monitor interactions, monitor brand mentions, and track consumer feedback. They can learn about consumer needs, views, and patterns by scouring social media data. This data supports establishing marketing strategies, enhancing consumer involvement, and promptly addressing consumer issues.
Source: Proxyway
Market AnalysisFinancial institutions and investment organizations gather real-time financial data through data scrapings, such as share prices, market movements, and financial-related news stories. They may analyze economic conditions, discover investment possibilities, and choose wise trading options by scraping the data from multiple sources. Data scraping helps them to stay current on market trends and interact swiftly with changing industry dynamics.
Source: Dataman
End Note Frequently Asked QuestionsQ1. What is an example of data scraping?
A. There are several examples of data scraping. One of the most common examples is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It might help you gather the appropriate information to enhance your online visibility on search engines. You can look for keywords and prospects for backlinks. There are numerous ways to use web scraping for SEO. You may scrape SERPs, study your competitors, explore backlink possibilities, etc.
Q2. Is data scraping legal in India?
A. According to the Information Technology Act 2000, data scraping can be considered identity theft under specific provisions. Illegal forms of data scraping can create trouble for the individuals involved. Companies and businesses should always abide by the rules and regulations of the websites to avoid any legal actions.
Q3. Is it legal to scrape data?
A. If you use web scraping to obtain information that is freely accessible online, it is entirely legal. However, national and foreign regulations secure some data types, so exercise caution when collecting sensitive, creative work, or confidential information.
Q4. What is data scraping in Excel?
A. When you equip Excel for web scraping, you build a “web query.” This query needs a web URL to access a website and retrieve the data-containing web page from a web server. After processing the newly generated HTML, Excel removes the data tables found on the specified page. You can choose the table(s) you want to include in the Excel file.
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