User:Nicolemicha/Evaluate an Article

Caffeine dependence : edited version

Which article are you evaluating?
Caffeine dependence

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 choose this article due to the increasing usage and exposure of caffeine across all ages. Caffeine has been gaining popularity as it has suggested more energy to the individual, leading to mass populations to be exposed to possible new dependencies. Caffeine usage is important to observe as it can affect ones' performance in the short and long term differently. Consuming coffee in a healthy way can lead to healthy usage and a less disrupted nervous system. Increasing consumption can lead to questions on the damage the nervous system experiences. My preliminary impression of this article was based on caffeine dependence and its' physical and psychological affects in the body and brain. Caffeine has been a rising topic, so as its dependency has been observed, I had the assumption of how caffeine is discussed negatively among individuals across all ages.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section: Within the article, the first sentence describes the article's topic, explaining what type of condition caffeine dependence is and where it is located within our environment by listing different types of drinks, pills, and plants. The lead does not give a brief description to the article's major sections. The lead includes the usage of caffeine and while one of the article's section includes a usage section, the other sections are not talked about in the lead such as the pregnancy section. The article's lead section includes the usage of caffeine in other continents, however, the major sections do not talk about caffeine usage results in populations in those listed continents.

Content: The article's content is relevant to the topic, however, it does not seem up to the date. While there are some references that have been from the past 5 years, there seems to be older references used. A piece of content that I believe does not belong is the different continents included in caffeine usage and the pregnancy section. The differentiation of continent population usage is not talked about any other time than the lead. The pregnancy section is not mentioned in the lead and has a small section, not referring to any content in the lead.

Tone and Balance: It seems as though the article is trying to describe the difference between caffeine addiction and dependence using neutral tone and not persuading the reader to think about caffeine usage in a certain way. The article does mention a study where the author strongly believes how caffeine withdrawal should be classified as a psychological disorder, however, it is described in a tone that is scientific and backed by a trusted experiment. Later in the article, there does not seem to be persuasion within the tone. Information is presented using accredited sources such as the APA and AAP. However, most of the tones are based on the references that are used.

Sources and Resources: The facts in the article are backed up by primary and secondary sources, however, I believe there could have been more primary resources behind the facts presented. The sources are not very thorough as they summarize the basics of what the sources suggest to the reader. There are some sources that give thorough information and they mostly come from the primary peer-reviewed sources. As these sources are based on first hand experiments, information that is told is more concise and clearly defined as these articles need clear variables to experiment on.

Organization and Writing Quality: The article's writing quality can be easily read, however the language seems to be very broad and not concise. Major words such as addiction and dependence are used and they overlap quite a bit. I would not say the article is well-organized as the lead sections and the major sections in the article do not reflect each other. Some sections are left out and some sections are supposed to be talked about, but are not.

Images and Media: There are no images used in this article.

Talk Page Discussion: The talk page includes how some facts are not backed up by any citation and how the language describing caffeine addiction is not defined. Furthermore, the talk page also features how there is missing information that is listed in the lead section. The article was apart of a Wiki Education assignment. Compared to how caffeine addiction and dependence are discussed in class, it seems as though in class the information is presented in a more concise and clear way while referencing primary sources. Within this article, the information is a bit rough and the sources can be primary and secondary.

Overall impressions: My overall impression of this article was that is still needs to be reviewed, revised, and clearly defined once again. Perhaps by clearly defining definitions and content that will be presented in the article can be a place to start changing the article for the better. As of its' current standing, I would say the article is poorly developed and can use more thorough information and reliable sources. Primary sources would add great benefit as well as organizing what type of information will be explained and described and following through on those topics.