User talk:Rafamatalon1234

Welcome!

Hello, Rafamatalon1234, 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.

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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 reply on your talk page for my notes:

• This needs some attribution for major claims like "Traditional and Folk music are very similar terms and most of the times misleading", as this can be seen as a bit subjective to the reader. Some may argue the opposite for either claim, so I'd attribute this to the source you're using to back up the claim. If the source doesn't make the claim, then we can't include it in the article. Keep in mind that we can only summarize what is explicitly stated in the source material.

• The sourcing needs to be stronger. Some of the sourcing is unusable, as it's either self-published or is an e-commerce site. Sites that are looking to sell the reader something are typically not seen as reliable sources, as they are often unclear about what (if any) editorial oversight they use and use of the site can be seen as an endorsement for the company's product(s). With self-published sites, the issue here is somewhat similar in that we can't guarantee what type of fact-checking or editorial oversight they use, if they use any. There's also an issue in that some of the sources don't really seem to be the strongest possible sources. Offhand the only sources that would be seen as reliable sources on Wikipedia would be AllMusic, Encyclopedia Brittanica, and Music Perception. The journal article is a study, which poses its own problems which I'll explain in the next bit.

The main concern here is that the sourcing all seems to be about folk music or traditional music. I don't see where any of the sources actually discuss both at the same time or draw any comparisons between the two. This poses a huge issue as it makes the entire section original research. As stated above, we can only summarize what is in the source material, so if the sourcing doesn't make comparisons between folk and traditional then it would be seen as original research to make these comparisons.

• The issue with using studies is that they're seen as primary sources for any of the claims put forth by their researchers. This means that they need to be backed up with an independent, secondary reliable source that covers the study, as this will verify the claims and help put them into context via the source's commentary. These are both important, as the publisher that puts out the study doesn't verify the claims and only checks for any major issues that would invalidate the study, nor do they provide commentary. The context is also important as studies are limited in scope because of limitations of manpower and time. They can't survey every test subject or test every possibility, so they are limited to a specific group of test subjects. As such, the findings are really only true for that specific group of people and can't be applied to a broader group, as results may differ if they were to have chosen a different group of test subjects from various different groups. For example, a study that surveyed white people from a middle-class background would likely produce different results than if they were to also survey people from a different socioeconomic background. The same could be said for types of singers.

I hope this helps! I don't want this to demoralize you - it's just that this needs a lot of work before it could be moved live and in its present state it wouldn't be prudent to move. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)