User:Blake.Travis/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

Name of Article and Why Article was Chosen

I have chosen to evaluate this article because our course is about social research methods and I wanted to pick an article that related to our course and talked about the material that we have discussed in class

Lead Evaluation

The introductory sentence clearly describes the article's topic and is concise and to the point. The lead discusses the difference between qualitative and quantitative methods, which are discussed further down in the article, as well as the type of data collection used as well as discussed data analysis. However did not discuss ethics and foundations of social research. It doesn't discuss anything that is not present in the article and is overall fairly concise.

Content Evaluation

The article's content is relevant to the topic of social research. It discusses various aspects such as sampling, guidelines for good research, methodological assumptions, ethics, types of methods, and its' foundations. Most of the content seems fairly up to date, most of the information is from the early to mid 2000s, with some older information ranging from the early to late 20th century. From what I can tell, there is no content missing or any content that does not belong in the article. Any topics that are not discussed in depth have links to other Wikipedia articles that discuss them more in depth.The article doesn't seem to deal with any equity gaps. It is mostly just discussing various aspects of research and their guidelines and doesn't seem to discuss any topics or populations that are underrepresented.

Tone and Balance Evaluation

The overall article is neutral, and doesn't seem to have any claims that are biased towards one particular position or another. It lists various qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods for collecting research and doesn't state that one form of research collection is better than another. The only section in the article that could be perceived as biased is the "Guidelines for "good research"" section, as this section only lists one sociologists' idea of "good research". However these principles seem like they would be universally agreed upon by all social scientists.

Sources and References Evaluation

All facts are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information. The sources are thorough and represent the available literature on the topic. The sources are somewhat current. Most of the sources are from the late to early 2000's with some sources spanning the 20th century. The sources are written by a wide range of authors and does not seem to rely too heavily on one particular author to complete the article. I don't see any evidence of including marginalized individuals, however. The first link that I checked took me to a website that had nothing to do with the topic at hand whatsoever, however most of the other links worked and took me to the intended websites.

Organization Evaluation

The article is well-written, it is very clear and provides an ample amount information on the topic, and provides links to other Wikipedia for more in-depth topics presented in the article. I found it a little hard to read just simply because of how long the article is and how much information is present. There are no grammatical or spelling errors present, and the article is down into sections that represent the major points and aspects of the topic.

Images and Media Evaluation

The article only includes one image of sociologist, Émile Durkheim. I wouldn't say that it really enhances the understanding of the topic in any way. The image states Émile Durkheim's name as well as provides a link to his Wikipedia page, but that's the extent of the caption. It is public domain and adheres to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. I would say that the image is set up in a visually appealing way that does not distract from the information in the article.

Talk Page Evaluation

There is not a lot of recent conversation going on at the moment, but the most important conversations that I can see are talking about how to simplify the content present, and remove any repetition or unnecessary info. However, the talk section is extremely blank overall. The article is rated as a C-Class History article and a Start-Class Sociology article. It is part of the Sociology WikiProject and the History WikiProject. There is really no in-depth conversation about the actual topic itself. The editors are simply saying that the article needs work and talking about minor errors that need to be fixed, but that's about the extent of it.

Overall Evaluation

Overall the article is fairly developed, but definitely needs some more attention and additional sources to take it out of C-Class/Start-Class.The article is strong in that it provides us with the basic guidelines and aspects of good social research and provides us with different research methods that can be explored more in depth in other articles. The article should go into more depth about the ethics of social research, as well as the foundations of social research. More pictures/flowcharts like those that are present in our textbook would definitely help make the article a lot stronger and make it easier for those who are reading the article to understand certain concepts that are presented. I would say that the article is fairly developed, but overall needs to include more details in certain areas where there is not that much and needs to be polished.