Dental Blogs
Dental blogs are generally maintained by prominent members of the dental profession. With the demise of the commercial corporate media and professional journalism in the U.S., online "Web Logs," or "blogs" as they have come to be known, have come to take their place as a reliable source of information for most Americans. The quality of factual information available on blogs can vary from the highest degree of reliability based on solid scholarship and research on one end to absolute drivel on the other. The "blogosphere" is a completely free and unregulated marketplace; the old Roman advice caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware") definitely applies here.
How to find more Dental Information
Entering the term "dental blogs" into your favorite search engine will bring up nearly four million hits. How does one separate the wheat from the chaff?
There is no foolproof way to determine the reliability of information on dental blogs. However, there are some indicators that the blog is maintained by someone who is knowledgeable and competent in the field. Most of these are owned and operated by professionals in the field; if you come upon a blog that belonging to "Dr. John Doe," it is a small matter to confirm his credentials through the American Dental Association or the Academy of General Dentistry.
Another good indicator is how long the blog has been online and how often it is updated. Because they are largely "regulated" by nothing more than the marketplace, blogs that provide reliable, high-quality, up-to-date information on a regular basis tend to stay online for years, whereas those which are largely nonsense don't survive very long.
This said, there is no shortage of dental topics covered by dental blogs, and in fact the sheer number of such blogs can be overwhelming. If you are looking for reliable dental blogs, a good place to start might be http://www.DentalGuideUSA.org/dental_blogs.htm.
On this site you will find a list of blogs that is not particularly long, but give the web surfer seeking dental information a place to start. On this site, you can also research the dentists who own and operate such blogs, as there is a fairly good listing of links to various state licensing agencies.
Cosmetic Dentistry
