Talk:The Principles of Psychology

message: The four topics SoC, Emotion, Habit, and Will are all extremely brief. For a what the article claims are supposedly the main four topics of the book, surely they could be expanded on. Furthermore, "...some topics stand out as being more useful and applicable than others, particularly the sections on stream of consciousness, emotion, habit, and will."  Useful how? And to whom? Which fields of psychology benefit the most from these topics?
The entire section of Comparative Psychology has absolutely no citations and reads very much like either direct quotes or close paraphrasing. I will further investigate this is section in the coming week.
Other areas look like good starts, but these were the issues I found most glaring.
MichaelCza (talk) 00:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Glaring Issues

message: I recently finished reading both volumes of the The Principles of Psychology. (Yes, all 1200 pages.) I don't think this article comes anywhere close to giving a fair summary of that great masterpiece. Also, I would like to see a section that criticizes some of James' theories and presents some contrasting modern alternatives. (e.g. Freud, Jung, Erikson, Maslow, Piaget, Berne, Skinner, Chomsky, etc.) I wish I had the time do that myself. Unfortunately, I don't presently have the freedom to do that. In that case, I will personally challenge anyone who does have the time, and the know how to undertake that venture. If you have further thoughts on this, please feel free to add to reply to this posting; either here, or on my Talk page. Aletheia (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article need some major work 

message: Having just read Richardson's great biography of Wm James I think this wiki piece on James' most notable contribution to psychology / philosophy.  The same can be said of wiki main bio page for James.  
Alfred North Whitehead said, "in western literature there are four great thinkers whose services to civilized throught rest largely on their achievements in philosophical assemblage; though each of them made important contributions to the structure of philosophic system.  These men are Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and William James."  I am not competetent, whoever wrote these pieces needs to give them the proper treatment James merits.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.121.227 (talk) 02:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this the best you can do ? 

message: This article has been substantially rewritten by my PSYC 480 History and Systems of Psychology class, Spring 2014 semester. I think they did a nice job, although there is always room for improvement.  I hope it meets with approval from the editors. J.R. Council (talk) 20:00, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major rewrite 

message: I think that this article could be improved by adding more sections, cleaning up the existing sections, finding more sources, and providing a more balanced/well-rounded view of the topics. Briekm (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Upcoming Improvements 

message: Looking at this article I see that there are improvements that are needing to be done.  Above they note that it is difficult to read, so I will try to make this article more readable.  Another improvement is that there is a lot of information missing about 'The Principles of Psychology'.  I think it is important to add parts of every aspect of this topic to the article so that the readers can have a better understanding. Jess.ndsu (talk) 16:38, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvements to be made 

message: Make the article a bit longer and go more in depth on specific topics that are important to the principles of Psychology but don't overwhelm people who don't know much about psychology or specific sections of psychology.
* expand more on William James 4 methods for people who are just learning about principles of psychology.
* put in more references to support more of the findings William James found.
* Talk more on the consequences of his results and why he had consequences from his findings.
Rude23 (talk) 00:27, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  To-Do List 

message: # Introduction
# Perhaps a basic outline of what topics are included in the book 
# More in the middle -- what else do you two think should go into the article (and do we want to keep all of the existing sections)?
# References
# See also
# External links
Briekm (talk) 07:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outline 

message: Stream of Consciousness
# Basic description of the concept
# How it was discussed in the book, perhaps finding a quote 
Emotion
# Basic description of the concept
# How it was discussed in the book, perhaps finding a quote
# To make it more well-rounded, there could be some mentions of other theories of emotions and how James' differs
Briekm (talk) 23:44, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Detailed Outline 

message: Habit
# Description of what Habit is
# Brief Quotes from James himself
# Why James stressed how this was an important influence of habitual responses for the maintenance of society
# Power and Inevitability of Human Habits
# James' conclusion about Habit
Will
#  Description of what James thought Will was
#  James's personal experience with Will
#  Impact James had on his readers
Jess.ndsu (talk) 17:13, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: More Detailed Outline

message: Here are some of the references I've collected so far:
* Mandler, G. (1990). William James And The Construction Of Emotion. Psychological Science, 1(3), 179-180.
* Coon, D. J. (2000). Salvaging the self in a world without soul: William James's The Principles of Psychology. History Of Psychology, 3(2), 83-103.
Briekm (talk) 07:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: These are all good ideas for improving the article. Please indicate which parts each group member will be working on. I see Jess has suggested getting together for this. Use this section or the To-Do list to indicate how you have split up tasks. J.R. Council (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Something you should definitely do is go back through the history of the article. See the version of 7 May 2014 for the article by a student from this class last spring which was "reverted" by "Omnipeddista" as documented in the following line from the history: (cur | prev) 00:16, 24 June 2014‎ Omnipaedista (talk | contribs)‎ . . (4,248 bytes) (-17,640)‎ . . (rv Cassio.vieiraneto per WP:COATRACK, WP:SYNTH and WP:NOR) (undo | thank). Click the links for COATRACK, SYNTH, and NOR to see the reasons this editor reverted it. I don't particularly agree with this, but it may help you avoid some mistakes. J.R. Council (talk) 21:41, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments and Commitments 

message: Principles of Psychology
* background
* where it started
* small background on the founder
* small touch on the 4 principles
* intro into the 4 principles
William James
* background growing up
* background in psychology
* how he got started in psychology
* how he came to write principles of psychology
Rude23 (talk) 17:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Outline

message: General comments: You’ve got a lot of really good ideas for this article on the talk page. It’s time to start putting them into the main article. 
*“More detailed outline” on the Talk page looks good for basic organization. 
**Note that there is already a good and detailed Wikipedia article on William James – just link to that rather than talking about James himself in this article. 
Be sure to look at this line in History: 
19:16, June 23, 2014‎ Omnipaedista (talk | contribs)‎ . . (4,248 bytes) (-17,640)‎ . . (rv Cassio.vieiraneto per WP:COATRACK, WP:SYNTH and WP:NOR)
Click on the links starting WP:  These are the reasons a editor reverted a revision by this class last spring. Don’t commit these sins as you develop the article. 
*I generally agree with the banner at the top which states: This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions.
Comments on specific sections of the main article follow:
 
1. Lead-in
*this section is very sketchy and unsatisfactory. There should be a brief description of why Principles was important, as well as an overview of the topics it covers and how they are organized. 
2. Nineteenth century experimental results
*needs a better title, and very poorly organized. Some of this could be moved to the lead-in section (see above)
3. Consequences of comparisons
*another bad section title. Better title, Comparative psychology, but that is only a small part of the book. 
4. Publication data
*better title – Publication history. Give accurate reference information for first edition, then may list some notable re-issues, such as the HUP with forward by George Miller that is listed.
5. Add a final section on Legacy or Lasting Influences
J.R. Council (talk) 22:30, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback for Assignment 9 

message: I submitted my report on the afternoon of Monday, December 1st. The only match it seemed to find was with Wikipedia (of course!), so it looks like there's nothing to fix. Briekm (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  SafeAssign: Plagiarism Reports 

message: There are four methods from James' book: stream of consciousness (James' most famous psychological metaphor); emotion (later known as the James–Lange theory); habit (human habits are constantly formed to achieve certain results); and will (through James' personal experiences in life).
That's about as far from Pinker's guidance on classic style as one can get.  It's 20% content and 80% footnotes, and the four footnotes all head off in completely different directions (no parallel style here).  
There are four methods used to obstruct clarity employed in the lead of the William James Wikipedia article: parenthetical about significance, parenthetical about the evolution of terminology, parenthetical to frame and enlarge, and parenthetical to contextualize.  
Here's where this needs to go: 
There are four methods from James' book: stream of consciousness, emotion, habit, and will.  [Sentence on soc]  [Sentence on emotion]  [Sentence on habit]  [Sentence on will] 
Ta da!  
I'm not close enough to this subject to craft the four appropriate sentences, or I would have done it myself. — MaxEnt 18:39, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The four methods of quibble 

message: The opening paragraph says that there are four methods from James's book, and the lists what appear to be topics rather than methods. Vorbee (talk) 15:41, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Methods or topics

message: Shouldn't this article include how the first sentence of James' book is that celebrated definition of psychology, namely, "Psychology is the science of mental life?"Vorbee (talk) 15:43, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: First words

message: William James was very influential and not enough is discussed about his thoughts and ideas presented in the book, "The Principles of Psychology". The Editor states some concepts are more helpful than others and gives a brief summary of them but leaves out other concepts discussed in James' book. James was the pioneer of functionalism, which receives no mention in the article either. The article is also lacking sources in many areas. Drewwolfley (talk) 05:47, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs work