User:Destyanderson/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

• Name of article: Social media and suicide
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
• Now that technology is advancing, and the rise of social media is in almost every home around the world. People have come across cyberbullying multiple times in their life, especially young adults. Over the years, I have seen my friends and even myself go through cyberbullying. It is a real thing young adults are facing, and it should not even be a factor. The more I understand and know a topic the better I am at dealing with it and others that may go through the same thing.

Lead

Guiding questions

The introductory sentence for this article is very vague. It does mention suicide, but it does not state how social media and suicide tie into each other. It should say something about how through the usage of social media and its negative feedback can cause young adults to contemplate and even commit suicide. The lead then goes on to talk about cyberbullying, and the last paragraph wraps up the rest of the topics discussed later in the article. It seems to throw all those topics within one or two sentences. It focuses more on providing real life examples of the topic. It does not have a section for real life examples in the article, but throughout the sections in the article it states many examples. It would be more beneficial to have a section labeled just for that very thing, so people could learn about the real affects it has on people who has went through that. It also does not reference the section labeled suicide notes. The Lead is concise in that the first paragraph explains suicide and social media as this invisible binding force. The rest goes on to explain most of the sections below, but it does need to be more concise in that it explains the sections a little more, and focuses less on real life examples.

• Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
• Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
• Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

Guiding questions

The content is relevant to the topic in that it goes into the different social media sites, and it explains where exactly most of this is happening. The section labeled suicide note while yes it is relevant to the topic it was unnecessary. In that section, lists of people that committed suicide, and it stated their last words on their suicide note. It would flow better if that section was used as an example portion in where the article stated more about how and why this tragedy happened to them.This would help people understand and learn from what has happened to others just like them. It seems to go too far with that section quoting someones suicide note online. It does seem up-to-date in the sections that discussed the topic. It even has a small part that seems to play the other side in where social media can have the opposite effect. It needs its own section to elaborate more on that way it seems less bias.

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
• Is the content up-to-date?
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

The article is fairly neutral. The article does not appear to show both sides of the story. Throughout the entire article, I only found a paragraph or two that showed social media in a positive light. Most of the article is about how social media causes suicide, but to be unbiased there should be a section in where it shows social media helping to prevent suicide before it beginnings. There is a section where social media now has a database that can detect whether someone posts a suicide note on their website. To play devil's advocate, their needs to be a section where young adults use social media as a way to help them cope with suicidal thoughts. I found an article that has done questionnaires asking these questions.

ROBINSON, Jo, et al. “Social Media and Suicide Prevention: Findings from a Stakeholder Survey.” Shanghai Archives of Psychiatry, vol. 27, no. 1, Feb. 2015, pp. 27–35. EBSCOhost, doi:10.11919/j.issn.1002-0829.214133.

I would be helpful to see both sides of the story that way people could get a clear picture of the positive and negatives of social media's relationship with suicide. There is no persuasive nature about the article only that it seems to go into detail about the negative effect of social media and suicide and does not seem to discuss to much about the positive. I did find a small paragraph at the end of a section where it starts the conversation of the idea, but overall needs to be a bigger discussed section.

• Is the article neutral?
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

Guiding questions

Some of the facts in the article are backed up by reliable sources but not all of them. There were some sources from news outlets or even .com websites that stated information about the topic. The sources seemed to be mixed with a most of them being reliable and some they googled. They do reflect the topic of this article, but some of the sources are from 10 years ago even longer. Since social media is an ever growing platform, data on this subject should not be that old. When clicking on the links for the sources most of them popped up, and I could read more information about the article topic. Only one or two of the sources I was unable to view due to either an error on the citation or the article itself was removed.

• Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
• Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
• Are the sources current?
• Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

Guiding questions

The article is a well written and well understood topic. The information presented has been well thought out and stated in a clear, concise way to help individuals understand what is being discussed. There was little to no grammatical or spelling error in this article. It was organized in how it approached the topic and where it left off at the end. The sections that are present do represent social media and suicide. It just needs more concise and stronger sections to help people narrow down exactly what is being discussed and where to find it. Although, the citation that were present in the article where not concise.

• Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
• Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
• Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Guiding questions

There was no images in this article. There were instances where images could have been present in different sections. Throughout the article, there are many times where statistics were stated, and it would have been more beneficial if there was a graph to help understand better than multiple sentences. It would have helped the reader to be able to compare and contrast all the data posted in that section. All the data that was presented in certain sections seems to make me lose interest in that part and skim until I got to the end.

• Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
• Are images well-captioned?
• Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
• Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

Guiding questions

The discussions on the talk page are all great ideas on how to improve the article. In 2015, someone in the talk page even stated about adding an image to this article. The discussion was mostly about how the references need to be better, and how grammar needed to be updated. It really went in the professionalism of the article. This article is a part of WikiProjects, and it is rated low importance.

• What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

Guiding questions

The strengths of this article is that it shines a light on suicide and how social media plays a big role in that. At the end, it also shows hotlines and preventions these platforms have developed to help stop suicides. It also gives data referring to the subject that helps people put into reference how prevalent this actually occurs. The article can be improved by adding images like graphs that encompass the data that was presented. It could also use more sections that delve into the other side of suicide and social media. The article is developed enough for people to read and understand what is discussed, and for the most part the data and sources listed are reliable. It just needs a few changes to make it into a well-developed article.

• What is the article's overall status?
• What are the article's strengths?
• How can the article be improved?
• How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

• Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~~~~

• Link to feedback: Talk:Social media and suicide/Archives/2020#Article evaluation