User:Stasiaross/sandbox

Article Evaluation
Stepfamily 1.Everything in the article is related to the title. It mentions the legal status of a stepfamily as well as adopting a stepchild. I did find the Etymology section to be a little confusing. It talks about where the word stepfamily has originated from. I just found that it distracted me from the main point of the article. 2. For the most part, the article maintains a neutral position. However, there is a section where it talks about stepparent adoption in the United States. It seems slightly bias since it doesn't mention the process in any other country. 3. For the most part, everything seems to be well represented. However, I do feel that more could be added to the section that involves challenges. I believe that there are more challenges than those listed in this section. 4. When checking the citations, I found that they were taken from books instead of an actual website. Therefore, I'm not exactly sure if the sources support the claims in the article. 5. For the most part, it seems that facts are referenced whether in footnotes or the reference section. Some of the sources may not be as reliable as others. For example, the references may be more reliable than those in the footnotes. Plus, the references seem to come from books instead of websites which I find to be a little more reliable. Overall, the references seem to be neutral. If the sources were to be biased, they didn't note it anywhere. 6.There doesn't seem to be any information that is out of date. More could be added to the challenges and stepparent adoption section. It would help to make the article a little less bias. 7. Overall, the conversations find this article to be unreliable. One source said that the article felt more like a personal essay than an encyclopedia. More reliable sources need to be added in order to improve the article. 8. The article is rated as a start-class on quality and a mid-importance on importance. This article is part of the WikiProject Sociology in order to help how sociology is represented on Wikipedia. 9.Wikipedia does a more in-depth discussion compared to what we do in class. They have stricter rules on what is considered to be a reliable source. They do this to improve their website. While in the class, we chose source we find reliable without going as in-depth as they do. In the end, they discuss a topic to inform people on the internet while we discuss topics to inform ourselves.

Stepfamily Topic Changes
Stepfamily 1. Challenges Topic on the Stepfamily page 2. Stepparent adoption outside of the United States 3. Abuse in Stepfamilies

Finalizing Topics
Stepfamily 1. First, I would like to add more to the challenges section of this page. I thought that what they have just scratches the surface of the issues that can arise in a stepfamily. I will be diving a little deeper by talking about challenges that are related to children, specifically the emotional and behavioral challenges that they might face. I might also include the challenges that stepchildren make for the stepparent (loss of control). 2. Wikipedia had made a note of this section itself saying that it is very biased because it only includes the United States. Since that is a problem, I would like to include more countries and how they deal with stepchild adoption. I think I want to focus on the United Kingdom or Canada. A country that is just as popular or populated as the United States. 3.For the final edit, I am debating if I want to verify pieces of the Legal Status section or if I should add a new section all together that talks about the positive effects that a stepfamily can have. I thought listing the positives would balance out the section that only mentions the challenges. Since it only talks about the negatives, I find the article to be slightly biased. So, adding this new section might alleviate that problem.

Article Edits Draft
Stepfamily 1. In Canada, one needs to put into writing what the child's circumstances are for being adopted. Some circumstances may include: the child's mental, physical, and emotional welfare, their background, religion, having a positive relationship, etc. If the child is an Indian or native person, then the family must specify their plan to keep the child involved in their culture. 2. Research has shown that parents who are constantly fighting with their ex-spouse tend to make their children suffer mentally and emotionally. However, parents who are close with their ex-spouse tend to make their new spouse insecure and anxious. 3. Along with the "simple" and "complex", there are other terms that help describe the types of stepfamilies. The most popular types are neotraditional, matriarchal, and romantic. Neotraditional is the most common and has both parents sharing the responsibility of the children. In a matriarchal stepfamily, a strong, independent woman is in charge of the family with the stepfather becoming a mentor. Finally, a romantic stepfamily is when the two parents expect the combining of their separate families to run smoothly without realizing that issues will arise.