User talk:Charlieaabrams
| This user is a student editor in George_Washington_University/UW1020_M66_(Spring) . |
Welcome!
[edit]Hello, Charlieaabrams, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Response
[edit]Hi, I have some feedback for you!
- One of the sources is a study. Studies should generally be avoided unless they're accompanied with a secondary source that reviews the study or comments upon the specific claim that is being stated. The reason for this is that studies are primary sources for any of the claims and research conducted by their authors. The publishers don't provide any commentary or in-depth verification, as they only check to ensure that the study doesn't have any glaring errors that would invalidate it immediately. Study findings also tend to be only true for the specific people or subjects that were studied. For example, a person in one area may respond differently than one in an area located on the other side of the country. Socioeconomic factors (be they for the person or a family member) also play a large role, among other things that can impact a response. As such, it's definitely important to find a secondary source, as they can provide this context, verification, and commentary. Aside from that, there's also the issue of why a specific study should be highlighted over another. For example, someone could ask why one study was chosen as opposed to something that studied a similar topic or had different results.
- In general be very choosy and careful when it comes to sourcing. It looks like some of the sourcing was written by advocacy organizations, which poses an issue of the sourcing's neutrality. For example, an advocacy program would be more likely to paint opposing figures or movements in a negative light. Some may put advocacy over accuracy in that they sensationalize any findings. Even if many would agree with their points, it's important to make sure that you use the strongest possible sourcing, which is typically going to be academic and scholarly sources. This is especially important with hot button topics like this, that are prone to debate.
- Avoid using point of view statements like valuable unless they're being attributed to a specific person or organization. Part of the reason for this is neutrality, but it's also an issue of subjectivity since not every reader may agree with the statement - some may argue that other methods would be more useful, for example.
I hope that this helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2019 (UTC)