Proof2

Maker’s Memo I began my process thinking of starting my own article about the inequalities in the healthcare system’s execution in the United States. However, it then came to my attention that there was a section I could focus on in the “Health Equity” Wikipedia article that was directly aligned with my research. What stood out to me was how small it was, disorganized, and left to the bottom of the article. This inspired me to try and fix this issue. I started my process by finding resources that could build off of and give more examples to the sources already present. After getting together a pool of sources, it was also important to group them together, including the ones already in the article, to follow trends by which I can link the new information. For example, I found differences in rural health and urban health, and I was able to bring in information that suggested rather dramatic differences in rural health with minority patients. Another topic I focused on was the lack of examination occurring over minority groups, where I found new information that illustrated differences especially present in Asian-Americans despite very concerning health settings. I also tried to focus on reformatting the work. In the “Health Equity” article, there is a section titled “Bias in Research,” that was one massive block of text. I created a new paragraph that helps divide the section to become more digestible to the reader, while also bringing about more examples of trends that wear down minority healthcare in America. Doing any sorts of sourcing throughout the process required the sources to be very extensive to all groups, so I tried to give examples for all different sorts of minority groups in America, including contrasting places of living. By being more inclusive in my research, I can illustrate the effects of the given conflict on all facets of life. My personal research covered inequalities that occur in the actual field of healthcare that have detrimental effects on patients, and how we got to such a point. This is why most of my sources are from medical articles that have their own research and studies, all of which taken in this manner were in peer-reviewed medical journals. They were also quite recent, where the oldest was from the early 2000s that followed timeless trends in America. I thought it to also be important to cover all racial groups affected by the healthcare setting in America. This is why I decided to put a lot of emphasis on the Asian-American population, whom I found to be one of the most disregarded groups when it comes to medical studies, despite the group’s concerning health statistics, such as it being the only group that has cancer as the leading cause of death. Highlighting underrepresented groups was definitely a goal of this research project. The most important way by which I followed the style of Wikipedia was by maintaining an uninfluential, yet informative voice for the reader in my conveying of information. This can be a challenging experience, since every piece of information has some sort of meaning. Therefore it is important to weed out arguments and to focus more about what exactly happened so that the readers can make their own judgements. Another way I tried to maintain the writing style of Wikipedia in my own writing was by citing sources in the same manner. Usually when citing sources, it is normal to use quotes and to then elaborate. But here, you would only take information from articles and put that into your own words to communicate overall ideas, then cite the source so the audience can look for themselves. By putting the facts into your own words, it becomes very easy to have a rather biased approach on the audience, so in doing so I needed to be careful. After receiving peer feedback, I noticed the biggest thing I lacked was accessibility from the perspective of the audience. For example, including wikilinks was something I generally forgot to include. After receiving this feedback, I tried to include them not only where I wrote, but also where writers before nme left their imprint on the article. This ties into the next part, which is providing more evidence for some of the conveyed information. There were some pieces of information referenced to without any source, so it was up to me to find the right source for the audience to look to, actively building on the notability of the article. I acknowledged that my peers followed some of the same trends, lacking accessibility for the audience when diving into complex topics. Wikilinks are great in this way; if the audience is confused, a wikilink can direct them to get better background data elsewhere. The biggest lesson I learned about sharing in a public setting is that communication really matters. When you are changing one of the largest databases in the world, it is vital to tell others what needs correction or where addition is necessary. Without justifying what you do, your ideas can be quite simply flushed out of the equation as being perceived as redundant or even plain wrong. It is also important to ignore adding irrelevant information. You want to be straight to the point to ignore your work being picked out later down the road. In the future, I would love to help make the article of “Health Equity” more interconnected. There are many instances in which topics overlap, and this overlap is sometimes not accounted for. I see that also adding wikilinks to other articles that direct the audiences to “Health Equity” can be important as well, since this article gets overshadowed by other health related disparities such as “Race and Health” and whatnot. It could also be vital to expand to other minority groups still yet to be given the proper awareness on the article, such as indigenous groups in America. Expanding the scope of groups that need help is necessary to fuel the knowledge of the people. There is much to be done to build on an already prominent Wikipedia article, but this will not stop me from aiming to help others better understand important topics.

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Hello, Proof2, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Brianda 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. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:08, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

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