User:HDavis25/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider:

Lead section

A good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.

Does the lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
Does the lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
Does the lead include information that is not present in the article? (It shouldn't.)
Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

A good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.

Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
Is the content up-to-date?
Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

Wikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.

Is the article neutral?
Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?
Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

A Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.

Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
Are the sources current?
Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization and writing quality

The writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.

Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
Are images well-captioned?
Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Talk page discussion

The article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article, and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

What is the article's overall status?
What are the article's strengths?
How can the article be improved?
How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Examples of good feedback

A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.

Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Which article are you evaluating?

Aleshia Brevard

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose this article because I find the lives of people who spent much of said lives in the time before Stonewall and before a lot of awareness about transgender issues was raised and who also lived through that awareness coming to the forefront of public discussion fascinating.

Evaluate the article

Lead Section

Immediately I can see that the lead section is very concise and does not do a very good job detailing what each other major section of the article discusses. It does not include any information not present in the article. It is also an interesting choice to omit the fact that she was transgender from the opening sentence, though it is mentioned later in the lead section.

Content

The content in the article covers many notable parts of Aleshia's life in detail. The most recent citations were from 2017, so there may be missing content regarding Brevard's legacy and her impact on the world after her death, but from a quick search I found that more recent sources are made up largely of blog posts that would be unlikely to be considered reputable or reliable. It might be prudent to include that she was a playwright, as she apparently co-wrote a play with Gina Grahame called Inside/Out as illuminated by an article by SFGate that is not yet cited.

Tone and Balance

The tone is neutral and presents a facts-based approach to documenting the course of Brevard's life. Charged language is largely absent.

Sources and References

This is one of the more troublesome areas for this article. Many of the facts stated rely solely on primary source citations, many of which came from Brevard herself regarding her university enrollment among other things. This overreliance on primary sources is mentioned in a blurb at the top of the article, recommended that additional secondary sources and tertiary sources be added.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is well-organized. Some sections may be a bit on the shorter side, but this is largely due to a lack of a large amount of information and documentation amount some parts of Brevard's life, such as her Early Life, her time in San Francisco, and her Education. I believe the information as it is currently presented is of a reasonable quantity, and the quality of the writing is legible and flows well.

Images and Media

This is the article's most glaring issue. Photographs of Brevard definitely exist, yet not a single image is present in this article. Other relevant photographs could also be included, such as one of Finocchio's Club, where she was employed, one of Middle Tennessee State University, where she received her education, and one of Compton's Cafeteria for the section that references it and her relation to it and the Tenderloin district.

Talk page discussion

I was quite amused to find a lengthy argument which got mildly hostile at times regarding citation styles. Thankfully, it ended in the two users working together to fix the issue. There were also very important discussions going on about her involvement with the transgender community being properly represented and ensuring the reliability of her obituary citation. The C-class of the article indicates (correctly) that it needs some work. This article is a part of the Biography, LGBT studies, Gender studies, and Women writers WikiProjects, marked as of low-importance to the latter two (which I believe to be incorrect at the very least on the topic of Gender studies). In class, we might have discussed Brevard in relation to our personal experiences and her importance to LGBTQ+ history in a more positive light and highlighted her role, but here, the writing is strictly facts-based, with no embellishments or opinions put forth.

Overall Impressions

The primary source issue is both a strength of this article in that there are so many primary sources cited, and a weakness in that there are insufficient secondary sources to complement them. This article, while it has a few issues that are in need of rectification such as the need for secondary sources and the need for images, has the potential to become a good article once those two elements are added. It is already well-written and well-detailed, and just needs a few updates and finishing touches. I would class this article as underdeveloped, but I believe it is close to being well-developed and just needs a bit more work.

Would this SFGate article and Aleshia's role as a playwright be a good addition? https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/one-damn-man-transsexual-pen-pals-pen-play-3202888.php

HDavis25 (talk) 20:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC) Feedback by HDavis25 (Helena Davis)