User talk:Songbirdsnake

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Hello, Songbirdsnake, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Peer Review - SMMC2002

Lead

The lead has been updated to add more context to the topic of the article, which makes it feel more complete and understandable. The initial sentence of the section effectively introduces the topic in a clear and concise way, while the rest of the lead gives an overview of what is covered in the article. Nothing is incorporated in the lead that is not elaborated on in another section of the article.

Content

As a whole, the changes made by the editor have significantly improved all aspects of this article. Specifically, the added headings and sections help the article flow and make it much easier to read. In addition, the new content adds information that would give readers a more well-rounded idea of Mental illnesses portrayed in media. In the History section of the article, I agree with the editor in wanting to delete the the third paragraph due to the lack of citations (as it feels a bit opinionated/biased). I think under the Theoretical Approaches section, each theory can be given its own subheading, as it may make the article flow better and be easier to read. In the Controversy within the news industry portion, there are statements directly quoted from the sources and placed into quotation marks. I believe in one of the assigned Wikipedia trainings, it mentioned articles not having direct quotes incorporated into them. Instead, Wikipedia encourages editors to paraphrase what the source is stating and add the citation at the end of the sentence.

Tone and Balance

Although these statements are cited by the editor, I do think some added sentences are a little opinionated (in other words, these sentences read more as a personal perspective rather than purely factual). I assume this is very similar to what the authors expressed in their respective sources, but I think it may be out-of-place in this article with the way the sentences are currently structured.

Examples of such sentences:

"Therefore, when the public encounters people with mental illnesses in real life, they either consciously or subconsciously label them as violent, dangerous, or unpredictable."

"Looking at the last century of filmmaking, it is clear that mentally ill villains are a goldmine for Hollywood success."

There are also several sections where specific studies or findings such as "Wahl and Roth conducted a content analysis" and "1989 survey of members of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill" are incorporated into the article. Although I understand the importance of including factual information on the topic, I do not think Wikipedia is meant to highlight specific studies conducted on a subject because it may come off as biased to readers. Instead, Dr. King has encouraged editors to give an overview of what several studies have found instead of only mentioning a few by name.

Sources and References

All of the in-text sources function correctly and are added in the appropriate places. The date of the sources range from recent to slightly older, which I feel is appropriate in order to incorporate a variety of information on the topic. The editor also added a significant number of sources from what was in the initial article, which were interworked into the article effectively.

Organization

I do appreciate how much the editor has changed and added to this article, as this draft is significantly different from the original article. With that said, I think some of the sections come off a bit wordy at times and could be written in a more concise manner. The editor may consider combining a few of the sentences that all revolve around the same subject together, as most Wikipedia readers want the information presented in the most readable way possible. One specific section where the editor can make these changes is News. Overall, the added sections and headings do make the article feel more complete and thorough from what it was prior.

Images and Media

Currently, there are no images included in this article. I do understand if the editor does not want to incorporate images into the article, as it may come off as offensive to add imagery with a topic of this nature.

Overall Impressions

Well done! I'm very impressed with how much the editor has done to build this article out. The suggested changes I mentioned are relatively minor, as I feel the article is already strong and well-written. SMMC2002 (talk) 02:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)