Talk:Impact of war on children

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Divya Bhatnagar, Choi922.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Essay-like
Hi, ,

I'm concerned that this is too much like a research paper or original research essay, as opposed to a Wikipedia article. Part of this may be the topic, as it's a little overly specific. Very, very specific topics don't always do as well on Wikipedia, which tends to take more general overviews on topics. For example, sections about scope are things that you would find more in a research paper, whereas Wikipedia prefers a section that covers the background of an topic. The issue with scope is that it's limiting. The scope section in this article mentions children in chronic war-zones from the last decade - which gives off the impression that this article is only meant to cover the last ten years of research and information. This is a bit too limiting for Wikipedia, which would be expected to cover the overall history, rather than just a specific time frame. (The exception being articles that cover time periods like "North America during World War I".)

Some of the content here also looks to be original research, meaning that it's conclusions that you drew based on existing sourcing rather than summarizing what authorities have already written on the topic. Basically, you need to make sure that what is in the article has been explicitly stated in the source material. For example, if someone describes something that sounds like it would be an orange but doesn't explicitly state that it's an orange, you shouldn't write that the something is an orange - it could just as easily be a grapefruit or a clementine. To the same end, you can't assume something like "in order to stop getting wet, people will go inside", as they may end up doing something different, like using an umbrella or even remaining in the rain.

Another thing to be cautious of is sourcing. If you are using research studies like this one, make sure that you pair it with a secondary source that covers the study's research (or the part of it that you're using). The reason for this is that the study is considered a primary source for any of the collected data or conclusions made by the study's authors. In order to show that the work is verifiable and noteworthy enough to highlight or otherwise use in an article, we need to be able to show where others have covered the study's data and/or conclusions. Being peer-reviewed for a journal doesn't really provide this, as they only review it to make sure that there aren't any glaring errors, omissions, or other issues that would make it unpublishable - basically "does this look OK and is it feasible". The secondary source also shows where the study is important enough to be chosen over other, similar sourcing. However even with the secondary source, make sure that you remain aware that the study only covers a small fraction of people and should not be seen as representative of all children in chronic war-zones, even if it looks like it would be applicable. What is applicable to the approximately 800 6-16 year old Sarajevo children in 1994 (children in a European country) may not be the same for children in the Middle East in 2018 - or even for other Sarajevo children from the same time period. The data is ultimately only truly applicable for the people who participated in the study, as anything other than that is the researcher's own assumption. With this you need to make sure that you specify where the data or assumption came from by attributing it to the researcher(s) or source within the sentence/paragraph. If the researcher(s) didn't state this, then making it a blanket statement would be seen as original research.

This is an interesting topic, so don't take this overly harshly - it's just that with things like this it has to be very carefully researched and written. Let me know if you have any questions! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Recent renaming of page
Hi

You've given the page a name that's very close to Children in the military, which is a well-developed page ('child soldiers' redirects to it). Can we find a name for this page that clearly distinguishes it from that one? Fugitivedave (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * How about 'Impact of war on child soldiers' or, if you want it to cover all children in war, 'Impact of war on children', though that would have huge scope and need a lot of work. Fugitivedave (talk) 10:13, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Done this now - hope the new page name is acceptable, feel free to discuss if needed! Fugitivedave (talk) 17:09, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Renaming the page
Hi, As this article is not meant to focus only on child soldiers but to cover all children affected by war, I renamed the page "Impact of war on children". Rehabilitation section is the only part that is focusing on child soldiers. Hope this change makes sense!
 * OK.Fugitivedave (talk) 08:07, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Predatory open access journals
I am not sure which journal is predatory one. Could anyone find which one is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Choi922 (talk • contribs) 12:39, 8 March 2018 (UTC)