User:Lilabroden3/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Social loafing

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this this article because it discusses a psychological concept that I am very interested in: social loafing. I am a psychology major and love learning about human behavior; more specifically, I love learning the reasons behind why people act, feel, and think the way they do. Social loafing is a phenomenon in which a person exerts less work to achieve a goal when they are working in a group rather than when they are working alone. This is very common and there are likely numerous individuals who have experienced the negative implications that social loafing can have. There are also many people who have likely committed social loafing, maybe without even realizing it. Learning about this topic is important because it provides further insights on why people act in the ways they do. My preliminary impression of the article was that it was structured well, that it has a lot of important information, and that it includes strong evidence to back up the claims and arguments being made.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:

- Yes, the lead includes an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic. The article starts off strong by clearing explaining what social loafing is and how it functions: "In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when working alone."

- No, the lead does not include an explicit description of the article's major sections. However, the lead includes a description of a study that was done on social loafing, which provides a strong transition to the first major section, the history behind social loafing.

- No, the lead does not include information that is not present in the article.

- Although the lead contains substantial information, it presents this information in a concise way. All the information talked about in the lead is important and necessary to give background to the rest of the article.

Content:

- Yes, the article's content is relevant to the topic, as it discusses the history of social loafing, various studies that have been done, the causes of social loafing, the consequences, real life examples of social loafing, and more.

- Yes, the content is up-to-date, as the last edits made were completed in January of this year.

- No, I don't think there is content missing or content that does not belong. The article is very detailed and discusses a variety of topics interconnected with social loafing. As I mentioned before, the article discusses the history behind social loafing, related studies, causes and impacts of social loafing, real life examples, and more.

- The article doesn't exactly address topics related to historically underrepresented populations. However, the article does discuss the relation between gender and social loafing, and the relation between different cultures and social loafing.

Tone and balance:

- Yes, the article is neutral. There doesn't appear to be any biases held in the way the article is written. It is straightforward, to the point, and uses evidence to back up the arguments made.

- No, there are no claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position. This isn't a critical article. Rather, it is just a comprehensive article that describes social loafing and why it happens and the impacts of it.

- No, the article is very balanced, so I don't think that there are any viewpoints that are overrepresented or underrepresented. Each section of the article talks about a different topic, the importance of it, and how it relates to the other major sections and topics.

- There doesn't appear to be any minority or fringe viewpoints included in the article.

- No, the article does not try to persuade the reader in favor of one position and away from another. This is not an opinion piece article; it is very straightforward and just describes the topic and all other related information.

Sources and references:

- Yes, facts in the article are backed up by reliable secondary sources of information. Each time a new topic or phenomenon is described, there is a link after it.

- Yes, the sources are thorough and they reflect the available literature on the topic. There are many sources, and many of them come from valid scientific journals.

- The sources are sort of current. They span from the mid-late 1900s to 2022. They could definitely be more current.

- Yes, the sources are written by a diverse spectrum of authors. The various authors all come from different races and ethnicities. It is hard to say whether some of these authors fit into a marginalized category, but they are all diverse and represent a variety of cultures.

- In terms of better sources, I think better sources would be ones that are more recent. Peer reviewed sources are always great, so there could definitely be more of them.

- Yes, the links work.

Organization and writing quality:

- Yes, the article is definitely well written, concise, clear, and easy to read. It is very straight-forward as well, and each section of the article relates to the last.

- There are no grammatical or spelling errors in the article that I can find.

- Yes, the article is very well organized. The article is broken down into numerous different sections that all relate to and reflect the main topic.

Images and media:

- The only images in the article are of tables / graphs relating to different studies that the article talks about.

- Yes, the images are well captioned, clear, and easy to read.

- Yes, the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

- Nothing really stands out about the pictures, but they are presented in a visually appealing way.

Talk page discussion:

- There are many different conversations going on in the talk page about how to represent the topic. Many people give their opinions about how to make the writing stronger and where more empirical evidence should be included. People also give their opinions about what else should be included in the article, such as including a section that describes how social loafing relates to college environments.

- The article is rated as a "good article nominee." Yes, the article is part of 3 WikiProjects: psychology, sociology, and philosophy.

- The way Wikipedia discusses this topic differs from what we have talked about in class because there are a few comments that say that some sentences need to be rephrased for Wikipedia's general audience. We have not talked about this in class before.

Overall impressions:

- The overall status of the article is that it is strong, well-written, concise, clear, and straightforward. Also, the article is not biased.

- I would say the biggest strength of the article is that it is not biased and that it doesn't try to get readers to believe one thing over the other. Another strength is that the article includes numerous studies that have been done to back up the arguments made. Lastly, the article is strong because it contains many different sections that all relate to social loafing and explain it further.

- The article can be improved by using more recent studies in their evidence. Additionally, some of the studies that were talked about could be explained better - people on the talk page also said this.

- I would say that overall, the article is very well-developed.