User:Leanna321/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Rumination (psychology)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The article about rumination first stuck out to me because it is something I personally struggle with. After reading it over, I thought the article was very interesting but I noticed that it was a little short. I also noticed one sentence was marked as needing further explanation, which made me think there is work to be done on this article. I also noticed there was no section about how people deal with rumination or what can be done to improve thought patterns. This topic is very important because many people struggle with rumination and may not even know there is a word for it.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The introductory sentence does concisely and clearly describe the topic of rumination. The lead briefly describes some of the article's sections, but does not mention all of the sections. The lead section does not contain any information that is not present in the article. While the lead is concise, I do think it could be even more concise while also describing the rest of the sections.

Content

The article's content is relevant to the topic, but I cannot be sure that the content is up-to-date because it is lacking recent sources. There is some content in the article that is marked as needing a citation and needing further explanation. The article does not address topics related to historically underrepresented populations. I also think creating some more sections, such as a Treatment section, could be a useful addition of relevant content.

Tone and Balance

The article seems to be neutral, including multiple different theories about the topic. The article does not attempt to persuade the reader toward any position. I did not notice any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position, and no viewpoint seemed overrepresented. However, I did not find any minority or fringe viewpoints described in the article.

Sources and References

Not all facts in the article are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information. Looking past the few missing citations, most of the cited sources are articles from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, so I would say they are not current. There are only 3 sources from the past 3 years. Although they are not current, the sources seem to be thorough and do reflect available literature on the topic, at least in their time. I did not notice diverse sources cited, nor did I find any historically marginalized individuals mentioned by the sources. The links to sources do work. It seems like all the sources are indeed peer-reviewed articles and secondary sources, but I could not get the full text for many of the papers cited. I think there are definitely better sources that could be found for this article.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is well-written and concise in most places. Part of the “Worry” section was a little unclear to me because of the sentence structure. Other than that, the grammar and spelling seems to be accurate throughout the article. The article is well-organized, with the information broken down into relevant sections and subsections.

Images and Media

There is only one image in the article and it does not enhance understanding of the topic, for me at least. The picture shows a person looking out of a window to give a visual of someone ruminating. The caption of the image is unrelated to the picture. The image does adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations because the creator’s work is public domain.

Talk page discussion

There have not been many conversations on the talk page since 2008, when two people discussed whether the article should have (psychology) or (mental) after its title. There have been a few people who left notes on what they feel should be added. One person in 2014 thought a Treatment section should be added, which was my first thought when I initially read the article, since this section was never added. One person in 2019 felt like there was a big piece missing from the article, and that there was a gap of ruminative thoughts that are not covered in the article, but I do not think this person made any edits. Most of these later posts did not have any replies. The article is rated a C and it is part of the WikiProject Psychology.

Overall impressions

I think this is a decent article that needs more development and more recent sources. One strength of this article is the related topics brought up in the different sections, which are relevant and well-organized. I also believe the article has strong explanations of most of the concepts and theories brought up. I think the article could be improved by adding more to the lead so that it introduces all of the sections contained within the article. I also think the sections could be developed a little more, and the information needs to be supported by more recent sources. The claims missing a citation also need to be removed or supported by sources. Adding information about the topic of rumination in regards to underrepresented populations would also improve the article. Overall, I would say that the article is just underdeveloped. I agree with the C rating the article has, as it does reference some reliable sources but needs more recent sources, and some points in the article could be more fleshed out.