User talk:Blakemurray7

Welcome!
Hello, Blakemurray7, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

April 2022
Hello, I'm Doug Weller. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Propaganda, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 11:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Feedback
I think the first problem is that you copied from your sandbox draft without clicking on the edit button first, which is why all your references and formatting didn't copy over. When you copy within Wikipedia, make sure you click on the edit button before you copy anything.

When you move your work into mainspace, make sure you explain what you're doing in your edit summary, and remember that it's better to make smaller edits than one big one.

With regards to your work as a whole, some of it isn't written in the tone you'd expect for an encyclopaedia article. Additions to Wikipedia articles should fit as seamlessly as possible with the rest of the article.


 * "Modern propaganda...today's digital age" - it's important to use language precisely. The "digital age" covers the last half century or so. "Today" is a dangerous word to use in Wikipedia articles because they're undated; there are articles I wrote in 2005 that are largely unchanged. Don't assume your readers are going to share a whole lot of background or world view with you.
 * Vague statements don't help readers: numerous politically affiliated accounts along with misinformation spread by fake anonymous accounts on both sides isn't terribly helpful to readers. What does "numerous" mean? Five, or 10,000? "Both sides" is too vague too - it sounds like all these incidents are a battle between the same two sides.
 * Your sources need to support the statements they follow. Neither of the sources (in your sandbox version) address Venezuela, and a 2020 article can't be used as a source for a 2022 conflict. Remember, when it comes to sourcing, readers need to be able to connect everything in an article to a supporting source. If each sentence is supported by a different source, that source should be cited at the ends of each sentence. If several sentences rely on the same source, you can use a single citation after a group of sentences. But you must always have at least one citation per paragraph, and no text after the final citation in a paragraph.

The second issue is why you created a distinct section. The article currently has sections on "Religious", "Wartime", "Advertising" and "Politics". The "Wartime" section leaves out the last 50 years (although, oddly, the advertising section has a large chunk of content about Hezbollah), and could certainly be updated to discuss modern uses (including memes in warfare). The "Politics" section ends with the 2016 elections.

It's also important to copyedit your own work. Make sure it all makes sense. This sentence, for example, doesn't not make sense

Finally, keep in mind that whatever you add to an article needs to fit as seamlessly as possible with that's there. Instead of dropping a single section in like this, incorporate your improvements into what's there already. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:32, 11 April 2022 (UTC)