User talk:Dcole12/Archive 1

Welcome
Hi Dcole12. Welcome to Wikipedia!

I'm an online ambassador for your Global Youth Studies course. If you have any questions or need help with anything, feel free to leave me a message over on my talk page. You can also find help at the Teahouse, at the links on Questions, or on IRC. Gobōnobō + c 05:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Introduction
Hi Danyelle. Thanks for leaving a message on my page. My semester is going great so far, and I'm looking forward to reading your article as well. Tatej (talk) 04:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Your article ideas
Hi Dcole12! I like the ideas you proposed for articles. Hopefully, you can spend some time looking at similar articles (maybe not written from a youth perspective, but just about sports) to see what contribution you can make. YOu have some great ideas. I would recommend coming to office hours with me or User:AbbeyMaynard to do some brainstorming on topics. Gobonobo is an invaluable person to consult with, too. Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 04:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * One more thing, Dcole12. Please make the edit, with the reference, in the actual article rather than in your sandbox. Thank you!Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 04:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Feedback
Your topic sounds like a good idea. It would be a really interesting read. I'm doing a topic on youth as well and would love to know just how much sports impacts a child's life. Creating a subtopic within Sport for social development would be a great place to start. Tatej (talk) 03:51, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Summary of Topic
After doing some research I have decided to edit the Sport for social development page. There is much room for improvement on this page. Wikipedia has labeled this article as an orphan. This means that it has no other articles link to it, so introducing links to the page is that something that I will be doing.

I also plan to elaborate on the definition on sport for social development in general, as well as look at the section on budget cuts in schools more closely. These sections are very general and could be more thoroughly developed. On the page there are also sub-headings for organizations in America as well as globally, I was thinking that I could pick one or two of these organizations from each section to in depth about. There are many good organizations out there that people should be more aware of. Also just expanding on youth in sports globally and how it may be different for youth in different countries. The page is very American focused and I want to get people thinking outside of America.

There are scholarly articles out there about this topic. I have not found exactly all of the ones that I will be using for my editing. My goal is to thoroughly improve the page. I look forward to this task and hope that the new information I had to the Wikipedia community will be useful to someone. Dcole12 (talk) 23:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Good start on declaring topic
You have the right ideas for working on the page. I look forward to seeing where you can link to the page, as an orphan is a page that no one links to. As you look for sources, I encourage you to work towards answering the question of how social development looks different across national contexts or among different groups of youth due to social divisions. What will it look like for your topic to "think outside of America?" I also made a to-do list of reminders from this week's class conversation. You may check to see you’ve checked them off by looking at my September 26 post on our course talk page. Cheers - Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 21:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Topic feedback
Hi Dcole12,

I see that you are settling on improving the Sport for social development article. This article has a lot of problems and is a good candidate for a massive rewrite. I deleted a huge chunk that appeared to be plagiarism from a teen magazine, so you might want to check and see what the article looks like now.

Here's my take on the rest of the article:
 * The lead section could be rewritten for clarity (and to elaborate on the basic definition, as you said).
 * The Why use sport? section isn't written in an encyclopedic tone and should be renamed.
 * The Budget cuts in schools section is too US-centric and needs other global examples for balance.

I'm also not very fond of the list of organizations that comprises the bulk of the article. It is odd that half of the US organizations have to do with squash. As is stated in the article, there are at least 700 organizations worldwide that are engaged in sport for social development. Listing them all in separate subsections and providing summaries of each would seem to have little utility for readers and is not really what we're trying to do here. What would be useful is a few paragraphs of prose that described the more prominent forms these organizations take around the world, with specific mentions of individual notable organizations where appropriate. Perhaps instead of an individual approach to those organizations, they could be clustered according to their sport or their global region. Gobōnobō + c 21:31, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Topic Feedback
Hello! I like that you chose an article in need of major editing and you will be adding links. I like how you will try to make it a more "global" article and less American. I looked at the article, and the sections do need more specific information. It is very general. Some of the organizations need to explain what their programs "do" besides stating they impact the lives of children. So, explaining the organizations a little more would be beneficial to the understanding of sports for social developmental. Another good idea would be to find a picture from one of these organizations showing what they do or how they impact children's lives. For example, a picture of them playing a sport an organization sponsors. Good luck!Lhegtvedt (talk) 00:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Topic Feedback
I second (or third) the idea of rewriting the entire article. That's not to say some pats of it aren't viable-- but it strikes me as odd that there's a section heading that's a question - 'why use sport?' This article is actually a fantastic example of what writing encyclopedically is not. But more specific things you could do:

Get rid of some of the examples in America. Maybe even just condense the examples into a larger heading of 'Organizations'. Just removing 'Organizations in America' can help delineate the focus on the global north. Adding a picture would be nice, too.

Good Luck!

AbbeyMaynard (talk) 01:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Source Feedback
Dcole12,

If you could post some external links to the sources you've posted I'd be able to look at them. Otherwise, I cannot really tell how reliable or useful the article is.

AbbeyMaynard (talk) 02:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Draft in the sandbox
Hi Dcole12 - The next step is a draft of the article - rather than a proposal - in your sandbox. Please come see me or Abbey if we can assist you in any way. Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Draft Feedback
DCole12,

Nice edits! I can tell this article is already improved significantly. There's still a large focus on American programs, so work on adding more examples of other nations and worldwide organizations. Another section with this same issue is the Budget Cut section. Other things that would be helpful to improve the whole article would be going through and fixing syntax and grammar issues. I know it sounds kind of lame, but it really helps if you read the article out loud so you can hear what sounds funny. It looks like most of these sorts of problems preexist your work on the page, but it would still be a helpful update. One minor thing, I still think the 'why use sport?' section could use a different name. Perhaps "Advantages to Sport"? Anyway, just something to think about.

AbbeyMaynard (talk) 01:45, 24 October 2013 (UTC)