User:ChloejWard/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mirror stage

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because it expands in depth a developmental stage I am familiar with given I have a background in Psychology. It is important to understand phases of development as I have experience working with young children. Immediate impression is that the article expands further than the brief understanding I have previously.

Evaluate the article
The lead section introduces the topic but is unclear at explaining what the mirror stage is or means as far as development. The lead sets up points that are later expanded upon in the article.

This article is written about a theory which may explain why there are contradicting point made. I found the article unclear in what it was trying to explain. Within the first paragraph the writer makes several points against the validity of the theory they later go on to explain. I believe this opposing view should have been saved for later in the work after first explaining what the theory is before discrediting it. I found the work used language that was hard to understand and left unexplained. For example the work says the mirror stage entails "libidinal dynamism" with no link or further explanation what that means. Overall, the work is well written but could be expanded upon to make it easier to understand.

The article is broken down into three categories; history, self-alienation, and phenomenon. There are concepts mentioned in the history section that could be expanded further into their own sections as the theory was deveolped from several psychologists it should expand slightly on the founding ideas instead of saying "was developed by ___'s earlier ideas". I also think there should be a seperate section for critiques.

This work is unbalanced because it is missing clear explanation of what the mirror stage actually is / means. The work is neural. It doesnt appear to be biased in one direction. As it is on a theory the author provides evidence for the theory and critiques against it. The talk page discusses the lack of referencing in the work and that the work is confusing, both points i agree with.

As for sources, all the sources used are reliable as they are working and lead to published psychology journals. Although, this page only cites 7 sources. There is a greater expanse of literature available on this subject available that should be included in this article. There also needs to be more citing within the page. The writer includes full paragraphs without a single citation.

Overall, the work is very well written and I appreciate that multiple view points were discussed, I think that's important when talking about Theory's. This work does not use enough references and uses language which is hard to understand without prior knowledge. LAnguage should be changed or expanded upon so it is clear what the author is saying. I suggest the author goes back and cites the work more thoroughly and also uses more sources to expand the work further where applicable.