User talk:Knwalker3

Welcome!

Hello, Knwalker3, 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.

Handouts
Choosing an article to edit Editing an article • Add images to articles Citing sources on Wikipedia
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Race/Gender and video games

Hi! I saw that you were editing articles that deal with gender and race as it comes to video games. I have to give you a head's up: this is a topic area that is heavily debated outside of Wikipedia and as such, there have been debates on Wikipedia when it comes to how the content should be represented and written. The articles are more heavily monitored than other pages, which means that any edits to this page should be written as neutrally as possible and use the best possible sourcing.

Now as far as the content goes, the one thing I did want to point out is that you used studies as sourcing. This poses a bit of a problem since studies are seen as primary sources for any of the research, claims, or data created by its authors, who are usually the ones who conducted the research or had some hand in it. As such, they 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. Here are some of the reasons for this, other than it being a primary source:

• 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, someone in Florida may respond differently than someone in California. Responses could also differ if the person was from another country entirely. Responses can be greatly impacted by a multitude of factors such as age, sex, gender, education (of the person and/or their family members), income bracket, culture, religion - there are many things that could alter how a person responds. Even the type of system the respondent uses to access a game or the typical server they frequent could impact how they respond.
• Someone could ask why one study was highlighted over another. For example, someone could ask why one study was chosen as opposed to something that studied a similar topic and perhaps had different results.

As such, it's definitely important to find a secondary source, as they can provide this context, verification, and commentary.

Other than that, definitely be careful of how you state claims. Keep in mind that many things are subjective, especially when it comes to personal and educational growth, so any major claims should be attributed to the persons making them. Even if you were to use a secondary source that agrees with a study's findings, you should still attribute. Video games in specific tend to be an area where there are many differing opinions, as some see it as a wonderful thing while others argue that it's not.

I hope that this all helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:36, 1 July 2019 (UTC)