User:Josiepape27/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Peer support

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because of my initial interest in classroom settings that have been proven overtime to demonstrate success in its design and composition. I chose peer support specifically due to the importance of such a topic in community learning settings, and because of the proven importance and success that has been found through the utilization of peer support classroom methods. As a peer heath advocate employed by the College of Idaho, I have also been able to see firsthand how peer support methods are able to be carried out and used to support students both in academic and psycho-social manners as well. I am hoping to further explore this concept and learn of the possible ways in which roles are able to be filled and fostered in educational settings.

Evaluate the article
The introduction and lead of the article seems to be fully developed, well thought out and sufficient in outline, defining and placing focus on the topic at hand. The lead contains links and citations to other definitions and pages as well, providing a reasonably fleshed-out initial definition of peer support.

The first section that focused on defining and outlining the underlying theories of peer support was helpful, however it also provided slightly questionable primary examples of peer support. The topic is admittedly difficult to define exactly, but I'm not sure why Hepatitis C was the first idea of what peer support was utilized as. The rest of the overall definitions and examples did make sense however, and added to the introduction well.

The article then moves into the theme and focus on educational contexts in order to define peer support. In this case, examples of peer mentoring, peer listening, meditation and sports contexts were included and provided with examples. Each section contained outward citations and links, assisting with further bolstering the ideas and background that is paired with each of the sub-topics. The subtopics were continued, and filled in additional spaces and contexts.

However, this structure of description of the subtopics provided the only structure of the article itself at all. There were no other subheadings used to describe or outline the topic, other than the description of the places and spaces that peer support methods are often utilized. I would have appreciated the use of other examples or ideas, or a description of the historical context of some of the context examples that were brought forward. I suppose this lacking of additional topics likely stemmed from the general broadness that the topic automatically comes with. It honestly would have been difficult to pinpoint where exactly to even take the components of the topic. However, I do feel as though the author did a good job of ensuring that all of the research and citations were sufficient and reputable.

The talk page seems to have a good beginning to it, and focuses mostly on reviewing and evaluating the links and resources that were provided. There were several links and sources that were chosen to be or at least encouraged to be removed, and it seems as though these changes were made after the requests were made on the talk page. There was a proposal for an additional section/topic to be included, and there was a request to remove the globalization flag, citing the fact that there were examples given outside of just the United States, and that the topic was already quite a universal one already and did not need change to be made to a large extent.

References

Peer support