Talk:Geographic mobility

Revision
Hello! I am a student at Rice university and am working to revise the current population mobility article. I'm updating the article to show how the ability to travel affects social opportunity and family dynamics. Wikipedia currently lacks information on geographic mobility outside the US, and does not look at how the ability to travel can change the functioning of a community. The current Population mobility article focuses only on demographic measures of population mobility and the technical definition of mobility in the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. Let me know if you have any advice, and I look forward to getting to work on this article! matt.9.johnson (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Potential expansions
Hello fellow editors. I've gotten to do a lot of work on this article, but there's still a lot of cool information that could be included. A few things that I came across that I did not really get to explore in depth: matt.9.johnson (talk) 02:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The relationship between architecture, technology, and personal mobility (particularly cities vs. country)
 * Environmental impacts of mobility
 * Mobility's impact on disease spread and global disease prevention
 * How personal mobility has changed and evolved over time
 * Transportation and educational opportunity
 * In depth review of sociological studies on effects of increased mobility. (Large amount of literature available!)

Jessi Litman
You have definitely added much needed information about geographic mobility outside of the US, and the article overall is very clear and reads well, but I have a couple of considerations for you to think about as you continue to modify the page.

First, within the Measurement Section, only the US, EU, and China are included. Is there a particular rationale behind why only these three regions are involved? Is there not enough information about the measurement of mobility for other regions? If so, you may want to note that for clarity. Additionally, you talk about the mobility internationally only in terms of measurement, not trends, different effects, causes, etc. It may be of use to try and weave this international conversation into the rest of the sections of the page.

Additionally, in terms of the Influencing Factors Section, the subsection titles were a bit confusing. I would recommend these changes:

Economic→Economic Reasons

Personal→Personal Preferences

Social→Social Forces

I think that these subtle changes in the subheadings will make both the outline and the actual section easier to follow.

If possible, I would also expand the Effects of children, family, and education section and the Effects on culture section. In their current states, the read a bit like afterthoughts as opposed to central issues and ideas.

The page incorporates reputable references and is well-cited, but the article could be linked to more ideas and the See Also section could be expanded.

Overall, this page is well-done. A few minor improvements will just help the article become more comprehensive and clear. I am very impressed with the work that has already been accomplished. Well done!

Jessi.litman (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Jessi,
 * Thanks for your feedback! I really like your heading suggestions, and will change them tomorrow when I start looking at the whole article again leading up the final contribution.  You guessed correctly that the measurement details section only covers three different regions since those were the regions I could find data easily for.  I will see if I can find a source of other data for regions around the world or a source that conclusively says these are the only powers that currently take the measurements.  I agree that I really want to expand the sections on social effects, but have actually had a tough time finding good sources for these issues.  I intuitively "know" that migration has huge social impacts, but haven't found many reliable sources to that end.  There are a TON of primary sources, but I haven't found much completed research.


 * Links are definitely a work in progress, and pretty rough right now. Once I am done editing for content I plan to sit down and do links everywhere.  I also know I need to fix the citation format and do a few other technical "chores" on the article.  Thanks for choosing to be one of my editors!
 * matt.9.johnson (talk) 06:35, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Amanda Mills
This is a large article and you've done a substantial amount of work on it so good job. You have used reliable sources and you seem to stay away from unattributed statements like "some say." The lead section is fairly clear, but it talks about congressional representation and spread of infectious disease, neither of which are really touched on in the actual article. I think these topics should either be left out of the lead or incorporated into the body of the article.

The article is comprehensive, although it could go deeper into some areas. For example, I agree with Jessi that other countries could be included in the Measurement section. The way the section is structured right now, the most information is given on the U.S. and other countries are kind of compared to the U.S., but I'm not sure I see why it is necessary to compare the measurement system of the EU to the U.S. If you were interested in including more countries, you could look at regions we studied in SWGS 322 like Central America and the Philippines, since there is definitely scholarly research on those areas. I would also say, in the Measurement section, that the section titles don't need to be "In __________." They could just say "United States," "European Union," "China."

You do a good job of maintaining a neutral point of view throughout. The diction is usually in accordance with Wikipedia style, but there were a couple of things I thought could be tweaked to make your article more encyclopedic. I think your slips in tone happen when you are trying to transition between ideas, sections, or sentences. At one point you use the phrase "on the other hand," which just sounds colloquial or like an essay to me. You use the word "also" a lot to transition to the next sentence or section, but I think the frequent, repeated use of the words "and" and "also" just distracts from the actual information. When switching sections or subjects, clear headings and organization will make it easy for readers to understand what you're talking about and eliminate the need for essay-like language.

Great job so far! I hope my comments are helpful. If you have any questions for me, you can ask me here or on my talk page. Weatherby551 (talk) 16:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Amanda,
 * Thanks for your response. One of the biggest critiques I had last semester was that my article seemed to flip flop biases, so I've been trying consciously to take a strong neutral tone.  Thanks for pointing out that I slip into a more colloquial writing style during transitions though.  I'll look for that specifically on the next edit.  I also agree that the last two sentences in the lead are a little bit out of place.  They are a holdover from the old version of the article, and probably just need to go.  There's a lot of cool information about the spread of diseases in a population as related to mobility, but it's really far outside of the scope of what I was intending to contribute and not something I'm sure I would have time to research and include accurately with only a week left.  I might remove the sentences from the main article, but add a todo list to the article talk page where I can include that idea for future editors. Thanks for your help and for choosing to be one of my editors!
 * matt.9.johnson (talk) 06:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2013 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 17:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)