User:Kywhalen0817/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Crisis of the Roman Republic

This article is overall very well done and seems to meet a lot of Wikipedia's standards for an accurate and unbiased article. Everything in the article seems relevant to the topic and free from any biased leanings or opinion statements. Because the article is about a historical event, there isn't anything in the content that could be seen as outdated. The article is very well cited and every link I clicked on took me to a reliable page and source of information from various places like Oxford University and other reputable databases of information. The article was given a "Start" rating which means it isn't as reputable as a "good" or "featured" article, and that may be because there were a few lines where citations were needed. The addition of just a few more reputable citations would drastically help this article seem more legitimate. Also, I felt as if the organization of the article could be slightly improved. For example, a simple 3-way Venn Diagram could be used to give readers a visual representation of what historians agree and disagree were contributing factors to the fall of the Roman Republic. The article would probably receive a better rating if it had also had a concluding paragraph that summed up the final gasp of the Roman Republic and how it transformed into the Roman Empire, it seems to just tail off in the middle of the article if left untouched. I also had one small issue with one sentenced that read, "Some of Gaius's followers caused the death of a man,..." This sentence, while technically grammatically correct leaves the reader feeling confused about what the author is talking about, I had to re-read a few times. I would remove the "manslaughter" link on "death of a man" and reword the sentence to include something about how his followers were accused of manslaughter instead of using the clunky, confusing phrase "caused the death of a man." Overall, the article was written well but just a few more citations, a visual representation, and a concluding paragraph briefly discussing the Roman Empire would make it a "good" Wikipedia article.