User talk:Wohlina

Welcome!
Hello, Wohlina, 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 wanted to respond on your talk page. I had a question about your project. What will you be editing on? I'm not sure where this will be placed, so I'm not really able to give you much feedback. I do have the following notes, though:


 * Be careful of making definitive statements when it comes to controversial topics such as the exploitation and sexualization of women. Part of this is because so much of the topic tends to be frequently debated, but it's also because definitive statements should be limited to things that are seen as true by the majority of people. There's also that when something is listed as a fact, it's being read in "Wikipedia's voice" - in other words, it's being seen as something said by Wikipedia. It's generally better to avoid making definitive statements and instead attribute claims to the person or organization making them.


 * You used a study as one of the sources for the draft. Studies are seen as primary sources for any claims or theories put forth by its authors, who typically were also the ones who ran the study. In order to use this, it needs to be accompanied by a secondary, independent source that covers the study. There are multiple reasons for this. The first is verification, as the publisher doesn't actually verify all of the findings in the study - they look over it to ensure that there are no glaring issues that would invalidate the study. It doesn't mean that the work is verified to be correct or even that they agree with the findings. A secondary source is needed for this, as the writer will be able to provide commentary on the study and verify the findings in one way or another. Studies are also fairly limited in scope out of necessity, as they're unable to survey all of the people or in this case, review all of the advertisements. As such, the study's findings are only really valid for those specific advertisements that were selected for the study. The study's findings may differ if they were to have chosen different magazines to pull advertisements from or if they were to include other forms of media, not to mention media from other countries. As such, the secondary source would help put the study's findings in context with other findings that deal with the same topic. This can be especially important when it comes to research that was conducted many years ago.


 * One of the sources you use is a documentary. These can be OK sources, but always be cautious with them since documentaries are not always neutral in tone. Anything that comes from a documentary should absolutely be attributed to the documentary and the person making the statement.


 * Make sure that you aren't writing persuasively - make sure that the material is balanced. To this end, it would be good to add more sources, especially those that take a more global look at the topic.

I hope this helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2019 (UTC)