User:Krm107/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: (link) Qualitative research (Qualitative research)
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. This page relates directly to our course and needs some work.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The opening sentence is a clear and concise definition with a citation. The second sentence includes quotation marks (Is this a direct quote or intended for emphasis?) without a citation. The third sentence resorts to a too simplistic comparison (as if "how often" is the only other option to "why" and "how" questions -- maybe it just needs a "For example" at the start...) The lead section gets into a discussion on some qualitative methods (but not a comprehensive overview of methods) which should probably be a section in itself that comes later. The block quote seems unnecessary as it just affirms what has already been stated (a citation would accomplish the same). The lead is too detailed. It gets too technical in terminology and includes a lot of information that would be better suited to come later.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation
The content is relevant but poorly organized and, at time, too wordy or includes too much jargon. There is a lot of information on the page that I don't know about, so I don't have a gauge of how current the content is. It is possible that some of the additions to the page were added when an idea was "trendy." There is missing content -- arts-based research is entirely absent as an approach. There could be a frameworks section. The section called "Data collection, analysis and field research design" requires work. (There is a whole section on data analysis and should not also be included here.) There should be a section on data collection that describes data collection practices for qualitative research to explain and even link to QR data collection practices like interviews, focus group, visual data, documents, etc.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
While the article does seem mainly neutral and descriptive, there are times that sections introduce what "critics" argue -- it might give the sense that the article is "for" while the critics are "against." There might be a better way to introduce opposing viewpoints? There is this line that is oddly phrased and poorly placed at the end of a section on "Interpretive techniques" that says: "To researchers outside the qualitative research field, the most common analysis of qualitative data is often perceived to be observer impression. That is, expert or bystander observers examine the data, interpret it via forming an impression and report their impression in a structured and sometimes quantitative form." Is it an incorrect impression? If so, is it always wrong or sometimes wrong? What would a researcher inside the qualitative research field say to that? It seems a strange way to end that section.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
There are places where citations are needed. There are a lot of references (56) on the page and a section for "Suggested Reading." The reference list looks fairly comprehensive and includes a few seminal pieces from the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. There are a number of sources from the 1990s and early 2000s, and a good representation of more recent literature from the last 10 years. Most of the links do seem to work.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
The article is very fragmented. There is a lot of technical jargon and academic language. As noted earlier, the sectioning of the article needs an overhaul.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
There are no images -- pictures, graphs, charts, etc -- nothing to visually enhance the page.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
The talk page goes back to the early 2000s. It seems like there was a push to work on this article in 2007-7, then a few suggestions over the years until a recent push since 2018 when there has been a lot of talk page activity. Unfortunately, some things addressed even back in 2007 and 2008 continue to be problematic including the language being too academic and the information being disjointed and fragmented. Some of the discussions are about what seem like very minor points.

This page is within the scope of both WikiProject Sociology and WikiProject Psychology

(This does make it feel somewhat daunting to suggest improvements, and even more so to actually make any changes!)

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
The overall status is that there is a lot of good information available in this article about the topic. With some work, it could be an excellent resource for people outside the field of qualitative research to better understand the topic. As it stands, it feels a little like too many cooks spoiling the soup... people adding the thing that feels most important to them without a clear sense of how it fits with the rest (and sometimes who the audience is). In my estimation, two major problems need to be addressed: restructuring the sections of the article AND rephrasing the academic and sometimes non-neutral language.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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 * Link to feedback: Talk:Qualitative research