User:Jlearner022/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
For this article evaluation activity, I've chosen the article Interpersonal communication.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I'm interested in learning about interpersonal communications. This specialization matters because it influences many aspects of our social lives and if we can improve our awareness of the impact it has in our communication with others, we could then control how messages are received.

My preliminary impression of the Wikipedia page is that it is extensive and lengthy. It also seems to take lots of focus on theories. There are very little visuals which seems to be contradictory to the topic of communication seeing as visual communication is just as powerful as the written word.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The lead sentence does provide a very concise description of the topic. However, the second paragraph starts with "Interpersonal communication research addresses at least six categories of inquiry...". Unfortunately, it does not reference or confirm that the six categories are supported by academic research or supported by notable sources. Who says there are only six categories. Why are these presented as the top six categories?

Content

The content outlines a brief mention of the foundations of interpersonal communication with very little if any mention of the progression of the concept of interpersonal communication. I would have liked to see the historical background and how it evolved.

The content then goes heavy into theories that are often difficult to associate back to the initial article topic. For example, the article mentions the Social exchange theory and how it related to interpersonal relationships but the article does not link back to how this theory relates to the article topic of interpersonal communication. The article could have went deeper into how the social exchange theory influences communication, not just relationships. How do this theory impact communication between two or more people? Could there be negative or even toxic effects to interpersonal communication when applying this theory? If yes, I would I have liked to see an article or a reference to how this theory related to interpersonal communication.

I would have created a whole different Wikipedia page just for Mass Communication as it's a very complex theory that should be further explored.

Under the Context section I would have liked to have seen a sub section about language disorders and their influence on interpersonal communications. These disorders are often unseen and have a major impact on communications.

Tone and Balance

The article presented itself as neutral by referencing numerous sources. I did not see any biased viewpoints, nor does the article try to persuade the reader. The article is factual and informative.

A for underrepresentation, as I mention in the context section above, and given the tendency for equality in social representation, it could have been beneficial to the article to have also focused on interpersonal communication challenges for the disabled or with linguistic disorders such as dyslexia; attention deficit disorder; autism; to name a few.

Sources and References

In the first lead sentence, the same reference was used twice, without any other supporting reference. Seeing as it was the lead paragraph, I would have liked to see more that one source that supported the definition.

I also mention in the Lead Section above on how a reference is missing in regards to the six categories inquiry about interpersonal communication research.

The links that I did check seemed accurate, current and relevant to the topic. The 9th reference was to a website that does talk about the topic but is not a notable source such as an academic or peer reviewed publication (Reference in question: "Principles of Interpersonal Communication | SkillsYouNeed". www.skillsyouneed.com. Retrieved 2022-04-10.)

In comparison, the very first reference in regards to the definition of Interpersonal Communication does reference a published source: Berger, Charles R. (2008). "Interpersonal communication". In Wolfgang Donsbach (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Communication. New York, New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 3671–3682. ISBN 978-1-4051-3199-5. The author of this book as a professor who specialized in communications at the TU Dresden.

The references section does note that additional citations are needed for verification.

Organization and Written Quality

The article is well written and uses plain language to provide factual information about the topic. I have not noticed any grammatical errors.

Sections and subsection with appropriate titles where used to organize the content which makes it easy to reference and find specific information. The table of contents that was generate was helpful.

Images and Media

The first image that is used at the beginning of the article seems inappropriate and old. The visual is a representation of a historical picture that would have been found in an office environment. I fail to see how it relates to interpersonal communications and could have been best used in organizational communications. A more relevant and recent visual could simply consist of two people talking or a clipart of two cartoon characters speaking with talking bubbles could have been a more accurate representation of interpersonal communications.

The second visual represents the communication process, however, I needed to click on the image to enlarge it to see the reference of where the image was taken. As opposed to the first image, there was a readily available reference without having to click on the image.

Another image of people passing a sphere is indeed a public domain image.

Overall, for a topic such as interpersonal communications, I was disappointed there were so little visuals in comparison to the length of the article.

Talk Page Discussion

I was surprised to see in the Talk Page that the article received a C- from the WikiProject Vital Articles. I'm also surprised to see that the issues that I brought forward above in my observations of this article are also found in the Talk Page. Full disclosure - I did not look at the Talk Page before starting my review of the article, hence my surprise that the missing topics and the narrow approach used for this article have not been corrected.

Because this article was the subject of an education assignment back in 2014, I get the impression that no one is taking ownership of it. All the great suggestions in the Talk Page should be implemented, but yet I don't see anyone taking the lead to apply meaningful change.

Overall Impressions

This article does present several facts that are relevant to the topic and brings forward numerous references to support the information.

My recommendations for improvement include focusing on the topic and less on the theories, or at the very least, make the theories relevant and associate to the topic. The article is missing information such as noise factor, and effective and ineffective interpersonal communication that was mentioned in the Talk Page, I would also include visuals and studies that have charts and informational graphs that explain the complexities of interpersonal communications. Communication is easily to visualize as it brings many emotions and types of exchanges.

In my view, the completeness of this article is underdeveloped. When I first found the article, I assumed it would be well written as it seemed long with many subjects and references. However, after reading through it and then seeing the Talk Page, I'm now of the opinion that it requires much more work.