User:Katie.scht/Media studies/Stevenfigge Peer Review

General info
Katie.scht
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * User:Katie.scht/Media studies
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Media studies

Lead
While Katie hasn't made any changes to the current Lead of the Media Studies article, I think it could use a bit of improvement. The article doesn't seem to be unified on whether it should be written as "Media Studies" or "Media studies", since the first two sentences contradict each other in that way. In addition, the lead is basically just a list of related concepts and does little to describe what the field of media studies is actually about. I think there is a lot of potential to give more clarity to the lead in general, if Katie wanted to go that route.

Content
In general, the content in the article seems to be tangentially related rather than directly connected. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the article is focusing on, as all of the sub-headers are just names of countries. It was strange to go from "Origin" to "Australia". When the article is categorized in such a way that goes by country, there will inevitably be some content gaps, but it seems unrealistic to try to plug all of those gaps as opposed to just categorizing the article in a better way.

As for the content that Katie added, I think the information is good and the contributions are modern, and it makes sense to stick to the US and Canada because those likely have a large bank of knowledge available to us. However, as I hinted at above, I wonder if organizing the article by country is the best way to go about writing content.

As a small critique, I'm left wondering what name the field of Media studies goes by in the United States, and I'd rather have that stated than just saying "a different name".

Tone and Balance
The tone of Katie's added content remains neutral throughout.

In general, I feel that the article, while remaining mostly neutral in terms of language, seems to indicate that some contributions were made because of country affiliation and not because it was essential to understanding media studies. For example, I wonder if the header about the Czech Republic is necessary at all, considering it doesn't contribute much to the overall article, and if its contribution was based on a bias by a past wiki contributor.

Sources and References
Katie's contributions are well sourced, perhaps a bit too well sourced in some scenarios. The United States section is fantastically sourced and the sources seem to have a good mix of modern and fairly recent sources. The Canada section, however, quotes and cites the source much like how you would in an essay (which is done perfectly!), but I don't believe that's what Wikipedia-style writing is looking for. I'd recommend changing the way that source is integrated to be a footnote rather than a direct quote.

For the article as a whole, I definitely think it could use updates on its sources, and more of them in general. Many of the sources cited are from the late 90s/early 2000s, and some sections, like Origin, only two sources. Not only would finding more credible sources on something like Origin increase the detail in an important section, it would make the article more modern and credible to include more sources.

Organization
The organization of this article seems to be the biggest area of improvement, but is also the scariest area to "mess with". The article as a whole lacks direction and seems to be a conglomeration of multiple different areas of interest, put together in a haphazard way. There isn't a clear structure as I scroll down the page, as the idea of media studies basically gets two paragraphs, and the rest of the article focuses on specialized knowledge for certain countries/areas of the world. I wonder if Katie could use the talk page to initiate a discussion about the unfocused state of the article?

In terms of Katie's sandbox draft, the information is also organized into these categories. However, I think that keeping sections about media studies in the US and Canada, in addition to other large countries, could be good. I just don't think they should be the entirety of the article, and should probably be lower down after discussing media studies more generally.

Overall, I think there's a lot of potential improvement to be had on the media studies article in terms of organization. Katie's work in her sandbox thus far is well organized and clear.

Images and Media
Aside from the two pictures at the top of the article, the media studies page doesn't integrate media at all (ironic). There's definitely opportunity to integrate media in the base article, which would help break up the huge blocks of text that currently occupy the page.

I'm not sure that this falls under Images and Media, but every time that you include a term that has a corresponding Wikipedia page, its good to hyperlink that page by highlighting the text and pressing the button to the left of the Cite button on the top bar. For example, when she talks about Uses and Gratifications by Katz, give me a link to both the Uses and Grats article, and Katz page as a theorist! That way if I want to explore, I can.

Overall Impressions
Overall, I think Katie is off to a solid start with her article, and has good sources to build on. If she becomes more comfortable with the Wikipedia style of writing and tools at her disposal, I think her additions to the article will turn out great. Try to integrate less direct quotations, hyperlinks to other Wikipedia articles, and potentially some media.

The article she's working on definitely has a lot of room for improvement, especially in the organization department. It lacks a clear focus, and maybe Katie could brainstorm what that might look like!

Response to Peer-Review
At this point in the process of editing articles, it can be easy to look over areas for potential improvement if you have your attention focused elsewhere. Through his peer-review, Steven was able to point out some areas for future improvement and highlight some stronger sections of work that have already been done on the media studies article.

The media studies article has much room for improvement. A couple of areas that Steven point out needed some improvement are the lead, images/media, and organization. Organization is certainly the most daunting of the three. I agree that something needs to be done in terms of the organization. However, the term media studies has various meanings across the world, so I am still debating about what is the best course of action. Once I decide on a better organizational method, I can add more media and edit the lead to reflect my changes.

Steven also brought to my attention the lack of hyperlinks. While this would create a better experience for future readers, it is not at the top of my priority list when it comes to revisions. If I can find a solution to the overhaul of organization, I hope to edit hyperlinks. However, this is not my top priority, and I feel that there are more important matters to address in the article. Another item that is of low priority to me at this point is paring down my use of quotes. Long, direct quotes do not follow Wikipedia standards. Luckily, my quotes are short enough to follow standards, but I do agree that they could be better summarized when the time comes to edit them. I anticipate that time will come much later in the semester when I am making finishing touches to the article.

Overall, I am glad that Steven brought some areas that were lacking to my attention. His insight is helping me narrow down my options and have a clearer vision towards what this article needs.