User talk:Patereau/sandbox

Article evaluation feedback
You found a tricky page to evaluate! I don't see where you state what page it is directly, but the sentence you quote leads me to this unofficial style page for how to talk about sexuality and gender identity in Wikipedia articles. This isn't the kind of page you will want to work on as your article improvement project, so may not be as directly valuable in how it connects to that work as an article would, but it does work fine for this exercise. You give a good overview of the content and point out that sources are reliable and that it feels complete overall with no significant information missing, all of which is good. There are some components of the exercise that I don't see addressed in this evaluation, such as an examination of the conversations happening on the talk page, evidence of bias or over-/under-represented viewpoints, and relevance and currency of the information. Nicoleccc (talk) 04:18, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Choose a topic feedback
These articles could both definitely use improvement! I do have a few notes about each of them: Abortion fund: This seems like it could use a "history" section, and maybe some discussion about what countries utilize these funds (and how access/distribution varies in different countries). I'm trying to think of a corollary article that might give examples of sections and a possible template for organization...possibly something like the food bank article?

Family homelessness: This one has a lot of information in the lead section that could be broken out into sub-sections of the article (with headings and a table of contents) and expanded/clarified. There is definitely opportunity to expand the United States-specific angle it's currently focused on and/or add sections for other countries/regions, particularly places where family homelessness looks different in some way than it does here (I can see this organized by country, although that risks becoming a list, and a rather long and likely repetitive one at that...organizing by how countries prevent or respond to family homelessness might be a different way to organize this information but still represent a broader range of countries).

My biggest note for both of these is: which one of these articles is best to work on is ultimately going to depend heavily on what sources you're able to find for these topics that will help you improve/build on the article. Before digging into the topic analysis, I would recommend spending 30 or so minutes doing some initial research on each of these. What kinds of sources are you finding? How many sources? How credible of sources? And how varied and useful is the information in those sources (at least at first glance)? If you find significantly more good information on one of these topics than the other, that might help you make your choice about which article to focus on. Nicoleccc (talk) 04:31, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Article draft feedback
There is some excellent information in these additions, and you have included some really good sources that you use well. As you continue adding to and revising this draft, some things to keep in mind are:


 * Focus. Some of the information presented in your draft is generalized to broader category of homelessness rather than the specific article topic of family homelessness. Material not focused on the article topic may not have a home in the article. If you have sources discussing things like mental illness within the specific framework of family homelessness, drawing that connection from them more fully and directly would help the material be more appropriate for inclusion in this article.
 * Purpose. The "solutions" section of any article is a tricky one! The fine line to walk is rooted in showing what solutions have been proposed and/or implemented and--if implemented--how successful they were (with careful sourcing to support these statements), rather than giving any sense of editorial opinion (which does happen in this draft in phrasing like "The smartest solution to family homelessness is..."). Taking a stance on a best solution to an issue would make a good thesis for a proposal-style argument paper, but doesn't match the purpose of an encyclopedia article. This is true also for predictive statements (without solutions, x will happen).
 * Bias. This comes through in the notes related to article purpose, where you take a stance about best solutions, but also in phrasing like "...homelessness, which often leads to drug and alcohol abuse", which is not linked to any source and reads as an editorial assumption (thereby stemming from editorial bias).
 * It would be good to give your final edits and additions a careful proofread before moving material into the article. There is some phrasing that could use clarity or possibly expansion (one example is "Reports suggest 33% of homeless people..." What reports? How recent are they? Who published them? Do they all agree on that 33% number?), and some grammar/punctuation bumps (for example, the "we" pronoun in your final paragraph, which shouldn't be used in encyclopedia work).

Let me know if you have any questions as you continues to expand on and revise this draft, and I look forward to seeing the final version! Nicoleccc (talk) 22:33, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Peer review
Great additions to the lead section and mental illness in the Factors involved section. This is an interesting article and I thought it was a fantastic choice! The Factors involved section has a percentage of people battling mental illness. Is there a source for these reports you can cite? As I read the article I wondered how many children are homeless and what percent attend school. Not sure if this information exists somewhere to add to the article... Best of luck editing! Derickson309 (talk) 16:41, 27 July 2019 (UTC)