User talk:Britclarke/sandbox

I like the addition of a psychological processes section but I think you may need to work on making your writing a bit simpler. I had a little trouble following what you meant by equal at first so just some clarification in there may be helpful. I would also recommend putting a picture of what the inverted U graph looks like to aid in your explanation. You may also want to explain a bit more about what modern technology adds to overchoice and include a citation in that small paragraph. In the psychological implications section, what do you mean by disengage from the decision making process? Additionally, the last sentence implies that under no time constraints, overchoice does not exist. Is this the case? I think these two sections are also very similar, so you may consider combining them or moving them to be one right after the other. Generally, I think the information that you added was great and really helps the article. You might want to make a note someplace, potentially in the first paragraph, that the article uses overchoice and choice overload interchangeable just so that people don’t get confused. Also, check your references at the bottom of the page, everything appeared to be sited properly within the text but it looks like there is a combination of MLA and APA in the styles of the references section. Wikipedia doesn’t require one specific style be used but it does say you should use one consistent style within one article. I made a few very small grammar changes but generally everything looks pretty good! Great work guys! Psyeditor (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I thought you did a good job adding to this article. You gave it a fuller description by adding the psychological aspects instead of having it relate to concepts outside of psychology. I think you could make this article even better by writing more towards the average person/Wikipedia writing style. The first three sentences of the psychological process could really be changed to provide a simpler understanding of the psychological process behind overchoice. In the second sentence, it uses "cognitively draining" maybe "mentally taxing" or "mentally draining" is simpler and relatable to the average person. I came up some specific examples to make your writing style more wikipedia wring style. I think if you changed "individuals" to "people" it would give a less wikipedia writing style sound. Another edition would be changing "smaller choice sets" to "smaller number of choices and/or options" would also help it sound more like Wikipedia. The sentence beginning "Modern technology allows us" under the psychological process seems a bit out of place. Maybe, if you could expand on that concept it and add a source it could make the article even better. I think adding the "U" model was a really good edition. I think it helps describe the overchoice process really well. Like the previous commenter/suggestion, I think the edition of a picture to describe the model process would be a great edition. Also, in the sentence describing the model, I would change the wording to something "In this model, when a person has no choice(s) they will be unsatisfied." I think you guys did a good job of applying what we learned to class towards a boarder application when you provided specific examples like "increased college options, career options, and perspective individuals to date." I would change the wording though of "perspective individuals to date" though. I think something better would be like "perspective romantic relationships" or "possible relationship options." Again, I think you did a good job creating a broader view of the topic of overchoice. I think you guys did well with clarity. It is simple and gets right to the point without over or under doing it. Feel free to have me clarify any of the comments that I made! But overall think you guys did a good job and can make this a really well rounded article.

Savannahdp (talk) 18:54, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Going through and looking at the specific changes that you made to this article, I got a sense that you have definitely improved this article in terms of clarity. You cleaned up a lot of sentences with simple word and order changes, which shows how meticulously you've combed through, but also added meaningful information that was relevant and helpful. Personally, I find choice overload to be a very interesting topic, and one that wouldn't be too difficult to explain. I appreciated you cleaning up the first sentence, as the existing introduction to the topic was both too historical and too simple. You did a nice job of explaining it further while removing unnecessary and potentially incorrect information (i.e., that it is a "postindustrial" phenomenon). However, if this definition is not drawn from Toffler, I might suggest adding a source there, even if it's one that you're also using later in the article. Also, if I'm interpreting your page correctly, you have removed all but the first two sentences from the introduction of the page. If that's the case, I might suggest that you reconsider -- while much of the information is too specific for a general article on choice overload in that it focuses on consumerism, there is some information that exists there currently that is useful to the reader. Perhaps it could be incorporated later in the article (and perhaps you did and I simply didn't pick up on it).

I see that you have added a great deal of information to this article, moving beyond editing what already exists to adding entire sections to this. Kudos here -- that must have taken a great deal of time and work! I found your Psychological Process section very well-written and clear. It was all cited frequently enough and I could tell what sources were used for any and all information provided. A minor suggestion I have in this section (which is small and maybe too detail-oriented) is in the first sentence, where I would use the word "equivalent" instead of "equal". I had to read this sentence more than once to understand it, as the tempo of it was sort of odd, and I think that that was the issue. Another part here that stood out to me was the last sentence: How does the ability to travel farther affect the number of things we have to choose from? This is unclear to me. The next section, Necessary Preconditions for Choice Overload, I believe begins with a comma splice. A colon or semi-colon (I'm not sure which) would be more appropriate there. The language throughout this section was verging on too academic for the average reader, but I couldn't find any better ways to phrase things. I realize that most of what's written here was by a previous editor, so it's not necessarily your word choice. I just think it's something to be wary of, I suppose.

I found it very interesting that you chose to change the subsection "Overchoice Outside of Economic Settings" to "Overchoice in an economic setting". This makes your removal of the information in the introduction make a great deal more sense to me, and I think that this was a very astute move on your part. Economic aspects of choice overload are interesting and important and I'm glad that you recognized that while it's not deserving of the spotlight of the article, it is an important piece that should be discussed. It was well-written (save for a missing comma after "however" in the first sentence) and communicated the various aspects of consumerism and choice overload efficiently and clearly. There were a great deal of sources used here, which can only benefit the article. I am confident that this section is not only accurate but also very helpful to any reader.

I saw little to no adjustments made in the Variety and Complexity section aside from the title, which I think is fine, as it was a pretty solid section to begin with.

Overall I think that this group has done an outstanding job in editing this page. You have added a great deal of information and cleared many things up. It reads mostly easily and isn't too much to chew on at once. The breakdown of the page makes sense, I believe. The tone is definitely unbiased throughout, and thoroughly cited. I hesitate to go through and edit any of the grammatical errors that I have mentioned, as I am not entirely confident that they are errors and I don't want to feel like I'm hijacking your article only to have you go back through and change things back because you disagree with me. I believe this to be a job well done and that the article has benefitted greatly from your very apparent hard work.

Aviciarodgers (talk) 02:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I like the section you guys added "psychological process", which explains the phenomenon of overchoice well. However, I think the second paragraph "examples of ...instantaneously" should not be included in "psychological process". As the original version said, overchoice is the result of technological progress. I therefore think this paragraph could be expanded more as a new section, which may describe the effect of technological progress to overchoice. In the original version, the definition of overchoice seems to be a bit disorganized, thus I agree to delete a part of them and remove some to a new section called "overchoice in an economic setting". However, the section "overchoice outside of economic settings" in the original version, which is deleted, is also important. I think this section may be used to compared with the section "overchoice in an economic setting". in terms of the change of the last section, I think "variety and complexity" is better than the original one, because it summarizes the paragraphs more precisely. Great job! Huihuiissy (talk) 19:22, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

You've done a great job adding missing citations in many places. One place to add more is in the "psychological implications", where you ling overchoice to dissonance but don't provide citations for this claim.

The writing is at times dense and hard to follow (e.g, "Having more choices, on the surface, appears to be a positive development; however it hides an underlying problem: faced with too many choices, consumers have trouble making optimal choices, and thus as a result can be indecisive, unhappy, and even refrain from making the choice (purchase) at all.") Try to use short, direct sentences.

Some of the additions could be deepened (such as the satisfaction with the process and the effects of the amount of time in the "psychological implications" section.) Right now the new additions seem fairly minimal in their impact. Regretscholar (talk) 23:17, 28 April 2015 (UTC)