User talk:Larainal

Welcome!
Hello, Larainal, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; 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. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Response
Hi! I have some notes:

In order to avoid persuasive writing, it's important to make sure that any major claims are attributed. For example, the first sentence in the section comes across as a concrete statement, which are things things that should be avoided unless it's a generally non-controversial and widely accepted. So what I would recommend is that instead of:
 * There are many facts that point to the existence of climate change.

You would instead have:
 * Scientists such as (insert scientist) have listed several factors that they argue point to the existence of climate change.

This takes the emphasis off of "this is what I claim" and instead attributes it to the person making the claim, giving a specific person as an example.

You also want to avoid any opinion or other subjective statements, as these may not be held by all readers. The only time these should be included is if you're directly attributing it to a person in the source material. For example, you don't want to say that something is effective since someone may argue that it's not effective. With governmental practices, there are more than likely many who would argue that these policies aren't effective in their current state. Cost effective is also a bit problematic for the same reason. What's cost effective can be subjective to the individual.

Slang and euphemisms (and the like) should be avoided, as this is something that is too casual for Wikipedia and may not always be understandable to all readers. These also run the risk of being unclear or even inaccurate in some ways. The phrase "all shapes and sizes" should be replaced.

Another way to avoid persuasive writing is to avoid writing "if... then..." type statements. For example, in the first paragraph you write a central thesis and then list several points of evidence. This is OK for essays, but it should be avoided on Wikipedia for the most part. I would actually recommend reading some of the other articles on Wikipedia to get a good idea of how the writing style should be.

I'm kind of concerned over the sources as well. Three of the links are to pages that are for advocacy organizations, which means that they're more likely to be non-neutral on the topic of climate change. There's also a question as to who writes the material, what type of editorial oversight they have, and the type and intensity of verification. At the very least they're not the strongest sources out there, whereas academic and scholarly sources would be far better to cite. This doesn't mean that these organization websites are wrong, just that they aren't a very strong source.

Another source looks to be a study. Studies should generally be avoided unless they're accompanied with a secondary source that reviews the study or comments upon the specific claim that is being stated. The reason for this is that studies are primary sources for any of the claims and research conducted by their authors. The publishers don't provide any commentary or in-depth verification, as they only check to ensure that the study doesn't have any glaring errors that would invalidate it immediately. Study findings also tend to be only true for the specific people or subjects that were studied. For example, a person in one area may respond differently than one in an area located on the other side of the country. Socioeconomic factors (be they for the person or a family member) also play a large role, among other things that can impact a response. As such, it's definitely important to find a secondary source, as they can provide this context, verification, and commentary.

I hope that this all helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Climate change
Hi, I removed the content you added to the article, as it still had some issues.


 * The first is that this still seemed kind of non-neutral and had some issues with attribution. A lot of aspects of this topic will be pretty subjective and controversial, so it's really important that the sources are as reliable and neutral as possible and that if something seems like it could be controversial, that it is attributed to the source. Anything that could be seen as a judgement call on whether or not efforts are significant or effective should be attributed as well.


 * Some of the sources aren't really usable. For example, the EDF is an advocacy group. This means that they have a very specific viewpoint on the topic and as such, their material will be aimed at proving their points rather than neutrally discussing the topic. It also looks like they have received criticism as well. The Climate Reality Project is also an advocacy site and as such, will not be a neutral source. The Routledge book should be fine to use, however. The CFR is a think tank and could be usable, however be very careful and make sure to check on the quality of the source.

I hope this helps. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)