kpop1-10, Exercise 2: Testing a claim

Claim: "BTS single-handedly made K-pop global."

Checklist questions (any five):
1. Which "K-pop"? Idol-system output, or the genre from the 1990s?
2. Whose number? No figure or owner is given.
3. Boundaries of "first"? Earlier acts spread K-pop in Asia (BoA, TVXQ, H.O.T. in China and Taiwan) and "Gangnam Style" reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2012, before BTS's US chart successes.
4. Record, report or rumour? "Single-handedly" is an opinion, not a record.
5. Is this an opinion? Yes: it is a judgment about cause.
6. Do sources disagree? The articles credit many acts, and an agency system, with the spread.
7. What is missing? Any evidence of cause.

Supportable rewrite: "According to the BTS article, BTS was the first South Korean act to top the Billboard 200 (2018), and by 2017 had 'led the Korean Wave into the United States'; earlier acts such as BoA, TVXQ, Psy and others had reached audiences in Asia, Japan and the United States before them."

Sources: Chapters 3, 7 and 8; Wikipedia, BTS; Gangnam Style; Korean Wave.