User:Kewestbrook1/Evaluate an Article

Evaluation of Uncertainty reduction theory article

 * Uncertainty reduction theory: Uncertainty reduction theory
 * I chose to evaluate the article for Uncertainty reduction theory because this theory is extremely interesting to me, and it was one of the foundational theories I learned in COM 101: Introduction to Communication. I think that the concepts and theorems housed within this theory are very simplistic, and yet encompass many of the explanations and reasons for how and why we interact and establish relationships with individuals the way we do. I really appreciate the straightforward nature of this theory, and I was excited to see if the Wikipedia article did anything to expand my knowledge of the theory.

Lead

 * The lead paragraph for the Uncertainty reduction theory article begins with an introductory sentence that helps provide a clear foundation of what the theory is, and more specifically identifies the individuals responsible for its creation as well as the year it was developed. It also provides another commonly recognized name of the theory (initial interaction theory). In addition, it clearly identifies this theory as a communication theory, which is extremely helpful because by reading the first sentence you can know whether or not this article is applicable to what you are trying to research. While the introductory sentence is extremely helpful in describing the topic, the introduction overall does not provide a thorough description of the article's major sections. While it introduces some of the main ideas like the stages of relational development and types of uncertainty, the order in which it describes these things is not the order in which they are presented in the article. It would be helpful if the description matched the organization of the article, to provide a clearer flow of ideas. The information included in the lead is all highlighted again and expounded upon throughout the article. Overall, the lead is relatively concise, at two paragraphs; however, I think that it could possibly have been boiled down into a paragraph making it a more concise and clear roadmap as the reader prepared to read the rest of the article.

Content

 * The article's content is relevant to the topic, and all of it is relatively pertinent in helping develop someone's knowledge of the theory. I go into more detail about improvements that could be made later, but overall the content is all correlated back to the theory and does a good job of laying out the various components that make up this theory. The content is also up-to-date based on what I read in the talk page, and my personal knowledge of this theory. There was nothing I read that seemed to be out of date or an aspect that was part of an outdated perspective of this theory. This was also reflected in part of the article when it described the two additional axioms that were added to the theory in 1991 and 2000. Although the newest axiom is from 19 years ago, this reflects that the article was aware of new information pertaining to the expansion of the theory and made sure to include those details when creating the article. In addition, as I stated earlier, there does not seem to be content that is missing, and the only part I would say that may not belong is everything from "Ethnicity and cultural differences" to the end of the article. I explain this in more detail later on, but essentially I feel like these elements do not entirely fit with the nature of the article, and attempt to over-expand the breadth of the article while sacrificing the quality of article that is achieved.

Tone and Balance

 * The article is written in a neutral tone, and there were no aspects where personal bias seemed leak in or where value statements were being made. I did not take note of any claims that appeared to be heavily biased toward a particular position. I felt like the article was written in a way that simply presented the facts and knowledge surrounding this theory without attempting to take a particular stance. There seemed to be equal representation of viewpoints, and as stated seemed to merely be restating facts about the theory. The article does not attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another. I think it is a well balanced article that does a good job of informing without bias.

Sources and References

 * For the most part, the facts in the article were backed up by reliable secondary sources of information. At times, I found areas of the article where statements beyond facts were being made and there was no apparent citation attached to the information, which I found problematic. This is something that should be fixed if this article is going to be fully developed and serve as a resource that can be relied upon to provide accurate information about this theory. Fortunately, this was not true in the majority of instances, but rather was only noticed in a handful of instances. In looking over the source list, the sources seemed to reflect the available literature on this theory, and seemed to be all-encompassing in nature. The sources appeared to come from a variety of places, making it appear as though there were many reliable sources to back up the assertions and facts being presented in the article. In addition, the sources were up to date and were not merely from decades ago, but rather included many articles from the past five to ten years. This reflected that the information in the article encompassed materials that coincided with the developments of the theory that have occurred over time. Finally, the links to the sources used in the article did work when I attempted to use them.

Organization

 * The article is not very well written. At times, the article is very concise and clear regarding the information that it presents; however, other times it gets circuitous in nature and is hard to follow. I think part of this can be attributed to the fact that the article is riddled with grammatical errors. As I read the article, I found multiple grammatical issues that affected the overall readability of the article. There were multiple instances where commas were misplaced or missing, which affected the meaning that could be drawn from what was written. In addition, the sentence structure at times was poor because clauses were jumbled and could have been restructured in a way that would aid in a smoother flow and enhanced readability of the article. Also verb tense was vacillating throughout the article from past to present, which made it difficult to follow the article because my brain was trying to rectify the proper verb tense that needed to be used. For example, over the course of one sentence a past tense verb and a present tense verb were used, and it simply made the article come across as being poorly written. In terms of overall organization, one of the main sections was "Stages of relational development" and it came after an in-depth discussion of all the components of the theory. I felt like it would have been better for this section to be located closer to the beginning of the article in order to use it as a jumping off point for how uncertainty reduction fits into the context of relationships, rather than vice versa. There were other instances like this in the article that made it difficult to coherently bring together all the concepts related to the theory because of the poor organization methods.

Images and Media

 * There are no images included in the article, so this section is not quite as applicable in evaluating the article. The only thing that can be evaluated and included in this section is the inclusion of "Table 1: Theorems of Uncertainty Reduction Theory." This table was poorly executed because although it had a title, the rows and columns were not labeled with titles. The only information that was provided to help explain the purpose of the table was an asterisk located underneath the table with the statement "*Table 1 summarizes the seven axioms and their relationships as theorems." This was not helpful because within the table there were blanks, plus signs, and minus signs, but there was no explanation provided as to what these symbols or lack of symbols meant. This made the table as an overall component very vague and confusing, and it was difficult to understand the importance of what it was meant to represent, explain, or expound upon.

Checking the talk page

 * In looking at the talk page for this article, it is clear that extensive conversation has taken place behind the scenes for this page. After reading through the dialogue, it became apparent that many of the individuals who have worked on and contributed to this page are other college students. It was interesting to see how individuals engaged in dialogue behind the scenes in order to try and improve the page, but without stepping on the toes of previous contributors or simply overhauling the entire page all at once. Many individuals set forth their ideas for how the page could be improved, and asked for feedback or approval of their plan before they went to work changing anything. This allowed for the changes to be made in a collective manner, and allowed for there to be an element of cohesion in the attempts at restructuring and changing this page. I state below how the article is rated, and as I stated earlier this page does seem to have been, and be, a part of many WikiProjects that other students around the country have used for their classwork. The biggest difference I see in this article from what I knew based on my prior knowledge of this theory is the expansion of the conversation into incentives for reducing uncertainty and the difference between retroactive and proactive uncertainty reduction. Overall, it was very interesting to see all the dialogue that has gone into the development of this page.

Overall impressions

 * Overall, I think the article could use a great deal of improvement. When I looked at this article and its listing on our classes page as one of the articles we could choose for our Wikipedia article, I saw that it is listed by Wikipedia as a C-class article, which means that it is an intermediate article and is identified as having room for improvement. I think that the overall status awarded to this page by Wikipedia is accurate. The content and crux of what the theory is and why it is important to Communication Studies is included in the article, it is simply the execution of writing the article itself that I think could have been accomplished more effectively to ensure that the article was clearly understood. The article is strong in providing the essential pieces of information that pertain to this theory and connecting them in a way that provides a relatively holistic picture of what this theory is and what purpose it serves for expanding what we know about how people relate to one another. The article really needs improvement in regards to organization, grammar, and breadth/depth. The way the article is organized needs to be rethought. The organization needs to be changed in order to make the article easier to follow and give a clear unfolding of all the interwoven entities that make up this theory. In addition, the grammar mistakes need to be fixed because they severely reduce the credibility of this article, and also make it appear as though not a lot of thought or time has gone into its creation. Finally, I think that near the end of the article the ethnicity and cultural differences described, as well as the contemporary use sections attempt to take this article beyond the scope of what it is trying to accomplish. These sections make it seem like this article is trying to do too much, and encompass too many details, without accomplishing much in terms of adding value to the article. I think taking these sections out and honing the depth of the other sections, while sacrificing some of the breadth of the article would really serve to enhance this article. Overall, this article is undeveloped, and definitely requires some updates in order to be a well-developed and quality piece of work.