Talk:Psychoanalytic dream interpretation/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Astrocog (talk · contribs) 22:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me like this is another psychology-related college assignment. I'm going to give a few basic recommendations and comments:
 * The article reads like a college essay. Consider your audience: general readers who have little-to-none in the way of psychology knowledge. You can't write this like you would a college paper. Citations should be given for every fact and non-common sense statement. The citations should be entered using the ref tag, and not be included using a format where the author and date are put into parentheses (author, date), nor with the author (date) format. This is an encyclopedia article, not a persuasive essay, so avoid sections that are pros and cons. You're not trying to give a "balanced" view of the subject. For science, you need to present the current scientific consensus of how this subject is approached. For this subject, I'm sure that will mean it feels "unbalanced" because then there will be more con than pro.
 * When using book sources to reference a major fact or statement, you need to give the page number(s). Something as fundamental as "Freud believed dreams represented a disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish. He believed that studying dreams provided the easiest road to understanding of the unconscious activities of the mind" needs a page number in the book reference so that it can possibly be verified. I know that sounds silly here, where it seems obviously true, but you should do it. In fact, I would avoid the primary source, and use independent sources for statements like this, if possible.
 * Starting a major section with "According to Domhoff,..." without ever saying who Domhoff is or why they are important enough to be quoted is another college essay styling that ahs intruded into this article. In fact, the intro is followed by a whole quotation. Just paraphrase with the naked name in there, and use proper citations, like this: "Dreaming is defined to be a sequence of experiences, perceived in the mind during sleep. Currently, researchers have no way of observing a person's dreams directly. They must rely on verbal or written reports provided by a person when they are awake." Note the use of general language without jargon. That's what you want to aim for.
 * Article is painfully underlinked.
 * The article is heavily-biased towards a psychiatric viewpoint which may not be representative of the modern scientific viewpoint. For the broadness/major points criteria for GAs, I'm not sure I'm getting the full story here. I don't feel like I'm getting a history of this practice, apart from its use by Freud, and then how it's used by some clinicians.
 * Awkward statements like, "Also considered arbitrary and imprecise, Freud dismissed the decoding method as well" should be located and fixed. Who considered the methods arbitrary and imprecise? Freud or researchers? It's not apparent in the sentence.
 * There are entire statements and even paragraphs without references or citations.


 * GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

In general, this is a decent start to the subject, but there are major issues. Many of these issues are outlined above.
 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * Many prose issues (see above). There a bulleted list that should be converted to prose. Make this article accessible to the general reader, not just audience of professors and students in a college psychology class.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * Since many statements, and even paragraphs, remain un-referenced, I cannot evaluate this criteria.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * Focused on subject, but I feel like I'm not getting the most broad picture. A greater inclusion of history, particularly the development post-Freud will help in this regard.
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * Again, because the citations are mainly to single papers, it's difficult to tell if everything here is the scientific consensus. The supporting references would be more convincing of this if they were recent review articles or book volumes edited to include our current understanding.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * Seems stable enough.
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * Two images. The second image needs alt-text.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Major issues with this article must be resolved. I'm failing the nomination because I think it will take significant work to improve it for GA status.