User:Jordanj140/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title
 * Privacy for research participants


 * Article Evaluation
 * The article's lead includes an introductory sentence that concisely describes the article's topic, but some portions of the lead seem overly wordy and fails to mention some topics that are presented later in the article. For example, there is no mention of how privacy risks are mitigated, which I think would be a pretty important topic to mention in the lead. Overall, however, the lead is adequate and provides a good first summary. The article's content is relevant to the topic, but I noticed that much of the information presented in the article could be elaborated further. For example, the "Biobank privacy" section should be elaborated further by perhaps talking more about the "controversies, perspectives, and challenges" that are mentioned in the first paragraph. Additionally, I think newer sources could be added to the article as the most recent source cited was from 2014. The article is written neutrally and has an informative tone as well as is pretty well balanced in its major sections. It presents many factual claims backed by sources and addresses both sides of the topic. While the article lacks sources, it does contain citations for each claim. However, many of the claims are from the same few sources, which raises some concern but is not necessarily bad. The citations all look reliable as most of them are from reputable academic/scientific journals and websites. The organization of the article is good, but I think that there could be more sections added, perhaps a section dedicated to the different methods used to protect research participant privacy. There are no pictures present on the article, which makes some sense since there are few if any pictures that could enhance the understanding of the topic (I cannot think of anything to add from the top of my head). There is only one submission on the talk page, which is a little concerning because it suggests that the article has not been worked on by many editors. Further checking the edit history only validates those concerns as only two users have contributed to the article. Overall, the article is a good start and ranked appropriately (start-class), but there are more topics and sources that could be added to update and enhance the understanding of the topic.


 * Sources
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037952/ -- provides more insight on privacy issues in research from a legal and newer perspective

Option 2

 * Article title
 * Patient education


 * Article Evaluation
 * The lead does include an introductory sentence that concisely describes and defines the topic, but the lead is incredibly short (as in the introductory sentence is the lead). There is much that can be added to the lead, such as briefly talking about the applications of patient education, the article's topic. The article's content is relevant to the topic, but it seems significantly lacking in information. For example, there is only one section in the article that only covers an overview of what patient education is and how it relates to health professionals. Perhaps those topics could be broken up into two sections and beefed up with more sources. Additionally, the content could be improved by adding more secitons, such as the history of patient education (how it has changed) and including different philosophies of patient education. The article is written somewhat neutrally and has an informative tone, but I definitely noticed that generally, the article's topic was presented in a very positive light. There is no criticisms presented towards patient education, but that may just be because there is no published criticism on the topic. Some of the claims lack citations, but all the citations seem reliable (they are published academic articles). However, newer sources could definitely be added to improve the overall content and credibility of the article. There is an image present in the article that does not seem particularly helpful in enhancing the understanding of the topic, but there is a caption that does a good job adding to the article. On the talk page, there is similar discussion about how to improve the article to bring it to a high-importance ranking. Overall, the article is a good start to describing what patient education is and rated appropriately as start-class, but I would definitely add more sources and sections to the article.


 * Sources
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346059/ -- reviews literature of different patient education models and offers strategies for improving patient education, which could be added under a new section called along the lines of "Different Patient Education Models"

Option 3

 * Article title
 * Evidence-based medicine


 * Article Evaluation
 * The lead of this article is quite strong and does include an introductory sentence that concisely describes what evidence-based medicine is. It does contain brief descriptions of the article's major sections, but I did notice that the lead seems a bit lacking in citations. In the two paragraphs of the lead, only two sentences are cited, which is a little concerning and should be improved. The content of the article is relevant and contains a lot of good information. It addresses in great detail the history of evidence-based medicine, varying methods of EBM, criticisms to the idea, and applications. Additionally, the content of the article is quite up-to-date, taking in account sources as recent as 2018, but of course, the more recent content the better. The article does a great job in neutrality and emphasizes in many places the fact that the claims proposed are published claims, further separating possible biases from the writers of the article. It addesses both positives and criticisms of such an approach to medicine. However, many of the claims in the article lack citations (as indicated by many sentences with citations needed flags), but the article does draw from a variety of sources. The citations all seem reliable as they are drawn from published, credible academic and research journals. There are no images in the article, but adding some images would definitely improve the understanding of the article. For example, diagrams of the different methods presented could be added to make the information easily-visualizable. Looking at the talk page, there is substantial discussion on the talk page, mostly in reference to how to improve the organization and the sources of the article. Overall, the article is quite strong and rated appropriately (C-class), but there are definitely improvements that could be made in regards to the organization, citations, and different sections of the article.


 * Sources
 * https://europepmc.org/article/med/10386099 -- offers claims that supplement the "Education" and "Criticism" sections, which are less in content compared to other sections of the article

Option 4

 * Article title
 * Neurosurgery


 * Article Evaluation
 * The lead does include an introductory sentence that concisely describes the article's topic, but seems a little short in length and content. It only defines what neurosurgery is, and does not mention the other major sections in the article, which I think should be added to improve the lead. The article does a great job in presenting relevant information and describing what neurosurgery is, the history behind the practice, the education required to become a neurosurgeon, and the different branches/specialities within the practice. Perhaps the content could be improved by adding more about the history of neurosurgery and how it differs in more countries. The article is very informative in tone and remains neutral throughout the article. It is quite well-balanced in its content, with no section overrepresented or biased. Additionally, the article's claims are well-cited and citations are plentiful throughout the article. All the citations seem reliable, but many of them come from research papers, which I believe should be limited in use as secondary sources are more preferred. Improvements on the sources could include finding more information from secondary sources (perhaps citing a textbook). Like mentioned briefly earlier, the article is very well organized and all the sections highlight important points of the topic. There are many pictures throughout the article that do a great job enhancing the understanding of the article. On the talk page, there is a lot of discussion on very specific topics/sentences, but fortunately no discussion about any major problems. Overall, the article is very well-written and well-cited, and improvements would only include adding newer content from more secondary sources into sections like history and education.


 * Sources
 * https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/36/4/article-pE12.xml -- a secondary source that would provide more information for the history section of the article