User:Mdbutler7/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Substance-induced psychosis - Wikipedia)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because I would like to better understand the topic of substance-induced psychosis. I expect that in my research to broaden my knowledge of the topic, I will gain a richer understanding of how substances play a role in mood and behavior. This topic matters to me because substance abuse is something that many of my friends, family, and patients have dealt with, or are currently dealing with. During these substance-induced psychotic events, it can be extremely hard to interpret which behaviors are a result of substance, and which behaviors may be indicators of deeper-rooted causes, such as mood disorders. My preliminary impression of this article is that it was unbiased, informative, shorter than I expected, and gave very bite-sized information in language that I feel all could easily understand.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section - The Lead Section is very short and sweet. It does a great job defining the topic of the article, shares other common names/keywords related to the topic, and does not share more information than needed. However, the Lead Section does not foreshadow the major sections to come in the article.

Content - The content overall in the article does not feel very well-balanced. While much of the content is relevant to the topic of the article, the article includes more information about substance use and schizophrenia than it does about psychosis in general. The article seems to put a major emphasis on schizophrenia. While the topics are very closely related and intertwined in various ways, it draws the attention away from the main point of the article.

Tone and Balance - While the article does a great job at providing unbiased sources for the information shared, the tone of the article could very easily be interpreted to draw inferences that the author may or may not be suggesting. For example, the tone of the article may seem to infer that a large amount of people who use substances will later become schizophrenic. The article states how substance-induced psychosis may be brought on my legal and illegal substances, but the article seems to only focus on illegal substances. The article could be improved by including more information regarding legal factors, such as caffeine, nicotine, over the counter medications, etc. This would help improve the balance of the article, while still maintaining the important information and data regarding illegal substances.

Sources and References - Clicking through a handful of references/citations in the article, I thankfully was directed exactly where it should've been directed to. While a few of the references provided were in other languages, my browsers translation tool allowed me to verify the reference was credible. One area of concern was the credibility of some of the references listed. Not all citations were from peer-reviewed sources. I found a couple websites, which appeared to be nothing more than a blog-type posting, and those sources did not have links to credible references for the claims made on their site. While the claims may very well be truthful, I would need to do further research to confirm those claims. Some of the data cited in the article seemed to stem from case studies, so the reliability/validity of that data supporting those claims is questionable to me.

Organization and Writing Quality - The article met all of my expectations as far as organization goes. The use of large-font headings/titles, charts, bullet-points, and indentations made for an easy-to-follow presentation.

Images and Media - There are no images or media included in this article, but I think images are not needed for this particular article. Any image included would probably take attention away from the main topic or disrupt the organization of the article in my opinion.

Talk Page Discussion - This article is rated C-class, and seems to confirm some of the concerns I had while reading the article. The talk page for this article seems fairly inactive, although I am completely new to Wiki-editing, so I have no prior experience with Wiki talk pages. Many of the talk page topics revolve around controversial claims made within the article, misleading content, and potential bias surrounding the topic of marijuana. It appears that a majority of the comments are around 10 years old, with only two users making comments within the past year.

Overall Impressions - While the article lacks the balance needed, the foundation and organization of the article is a major strength. The layout and structure of the article seems to be a wonderful outline to communicate the articles topic effectively. To improve the article, I think controversial or misleading claims could be amended, citations could be updated with references that are more recent, and any questionable reference could be removed/replaced with a credible source. To address the tone and balance of the article, I think up-to-date literature and rephrasing of certain claims could go a long way. I would also like to see more data regarding more common/legal substances, but it is very possible that the data is limited in comparison to studies and research regarding illegal substances.