User:Dingers99/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Communication studies

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I felt like it was the most relevant to this class and the communications minor that I am taking the class for. This page matters because it provides solid background on what exactly communication studies is. This is something that is important to know when trying to complete a communications minor. My preliminary impression of this article is that is very well written and concise. It allows the reader to quickly and efficiently come to a basic understanding of what communication studies is.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section: The lead section provides an introductory sentence that that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic. The lead sentence defines communication studies is a concise manner that still gets the point across. It does provide a brief description of the article's major sections. The lead section acts an overview for the rest of the article while the following sections get more specific allowing greater detail to be displayed within the article. For example, the lead section says, "The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of communication". One of the sections following the lead, entitled, "Origins" goes into the origin of communication studies. It farther expounds upon this sentence from the lead section. This section states, "As communication technologies developed, so did the serious study of communication. When World War I ended, the interest in studying communication intensified. The social science study was fully recognized as a legitimate discipline after World War II." Here we learn that it was specifically advancements in technology that in turn advanced communication studies as its own discipline and that it wasn't recognized as its own discipline until after WWII.

Content: The content is relative to the topic throughout the article. It doesn't stray from the topic of communication studies. None of the claims appear overly biased. They all seem neutral and as though the only thought put into them was transmitting correct information. While all of the content included is relevant to the topic, there does seem to be information missing. The content of the article focuses heavily on the origin and history of communication studies. Over half of the body of the article is under two subheadings: "Origins" and "Foundations of the academic discipline". There is an absence of information on the curent state of communication studies. I believe the page would be better overall if it included sections on the current state of communiation studies.

Tone and Balance: The article does appear neutral. There are no biases as far as I can tell. The article seems set on displaying accurate information that is simply facts and not trying to persuade the reader of anything. A viewpoint that is overrespresented is the history of the discipline of communication studies. Like I said above, over half of the body of the article focuses and the history of communication studies and how it came to be it's own distinct discipline in the first place. While it is not bad to discuss this (in fact, it is a very good thing to discuss) the article would be better suited focusing as well on how the discipline is doing currently and how it's being affected. The last two sections are "In the United States" and "In Canada". Only focusing on these two countries doesn't allow the reader to understand communication studies from a global perspective. It only focuses on one hemisphere of the world and only a small portion of that hemisphere. While I'm assuming there were no bad intentions behind this, it severely underrepresents minority groups and coutries that are not predominantly inhabited by white people.

Sources and References: This article is in severe need of more references. There are several sentences without a cited source. Here is an example of a sentence that needs a source. "Scholarly communication theorists focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of communication, examining statistics in order to help substantiate claims." First of all, what is a scholarly communication theorist? And if scholarly communication theorists actually do exist, then which ones are saying this? There is no proof that scholarly communication theorists even exist in the first place and there is no proof as to which of these theorists are focused on the things described in this sentence. All of the sources that were cited however, did seem to be reliable and trustworthy. All of the links I clicked on worked and took me to a page where I could learn more about the topic. For example, the section titled "Origin" talks about how technological advancements helped also advance the field of communication. The article didn't really go into more detail about this. But I was able to click on the link and learn more. I learned about how things such as computers, the internet, social media, texting, and email all played a significant role in the advancement of communication. These advancements allow for easier communication and faster spread of information.

Organization and Writing Quality: What was actually in the article was pretty well organized. It was well written and easy to read. There were no typos or spelling errors that I could see. The problem was that there wasn't enough information. The lead section succintly lays out a brief overview of what communication studies is and what all the discipline entails. The article does a nice job displaying the history of communication studies. But this seems to be the only focus of the article. Again, the article would greatly benefit from an account on the current state of communcation studies.

Images and Media: This might be the worst part of this page. There is only image throughout the whole article. It was part of the lead section. And what's worse, I didn't understand the picture at all. I didn't see how it applied to communication studies, or any specific topic for that matter. More images and media certainly would be helpful. For example, the article could include images on different types of communication. Perhaps a picture of the first cell phone, a group of people conversing or social media logos. It would also be beneficial to have pictures of individuals who have made significant contributions to the communications discipline.

Talk Page Discussion: There were not any conversations going on in the talk page. There were a couple of other evaluations that had been completed concerning this page but no conversation. The article is not rated very highly. It is part of multiple WikiProjects including: Media, Sociology, Linguistics, Philosophy/Literature, Science, and Writing. It is also considered of "high" or "top" importance in all of these categories. This clearly indicates it is not a very well written article.

Overall Impressions: Overall, this is not a very good article. There are multiple sentences that need a source. It adaquately discusses the history of the discipline without really discussing its current state. I may have been a bit harsh in this evaluation as it does talk about how it applies to modern business. However, there are multiple other disciplines that relate to communications and could be discussed such as, education and medicine. The article does mention some of these other disciplines but fails to discuss how exactly communication studies is useful in these disciplines. Added detail here is needed. It also underrepresents minority groups and countries that are not inhabited by predominantly white people. It is generally organized but missing certain aspects and details. The images are not good. The one image that is included does not make sense. And there are not enough of them. The biggest strength of the article is the lead section. The lead section does a wonderful job of giving a brief overview of communication studies as a whole while not taking away from the body of the article. Overall, it is poorly developed and needs work.