User:Weaverni/sandbox

The “Meritocracy” Wikipedia article[1] does an adequate job of tracking the history of the meritocratic concept, but has several flaws in the way it describes modern theories of meritocracy and their proponents and critics. Some sections of the article are biased, opposing viewpoints are not represented fairly, and many statements are made with improper citation or a total lack of citation.

This article is biased in favor of a negative viewpoint of meritocracy. Negative theories of meritocracy are given much attention, while there is little to no inclusion of modern, positive theories of meritocracy. A large portion of the article is made up by the “criticism” section. However, no section adequately describes the viewpoints of those who defend and advocate meritocracy. That isn’t the only problem with the criticism section, however. The criticism section is lacking in citation. Many points are made in the criticism section that appear to be opinions of the person who typed them into the article. The criticism section defines a belief of why meritocracy is impractical in the real world and can have negative consequences. However, it does not do a good job of backing this assertion up with citations. Citations from academic, impartial, respected sources are vital to the structure of Wikipedia. Without these, the criticism section could be seen as original research that is biased in favor of a negative view of meritocracy. These citations would not be too difficult to produce, either. Articles such as “The Meretriciousness of Meritocracy” [2] by David Lipsey or “The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations”[3] by Castilla and Benard provide criticisms of meritocracy from respected authors in academic journals that could have been used as adequate citations for the criticism section.

Another area that needs improvement is the last paragraph of the “more recent definitions” section. In this section, the assertion is made that college is the “most common form of meritocratic screening found today”. It is not backed up by a citation, and the rest of the paragraph is based on this assertion. There are other competing theories of college, such as one described by Louis Menand, a writer and college professor, in his article “Live and Learn: Why we have college”[4]. This theory is that college is a system of democratic, liberal education. Certainly not all academics see college as entirely meritocratic. A citation is definitely necessary to back up the claim that college is the most widespread meritocratic system.

There were also some sections where the writer chose to put large blocks of text from the source in quotes instead of putting the text into his or her own words. This includes the quote on Mill’s views by Estlund and the quotation from the Princeton Encyclopedia on the meritocracy of ancient China.

In summary, this article needs work to make it more neutral and representative, and it needs more citations to back up its statements.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

[2] Lipsey, David. “The Meretriciousness of Meritocracy”. Political Quarterly Vol. 85, Issue 1. Date: 01/2014 Pages: 37-42.

[3] Castilla, Emilio J., Benard, Stephen. “The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations” Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. 55, Issue 4. Date: 12/2010 Pages: 543-576.

[4] Menand, Louis. “Live and Learn: Why we have college”June 6, 2011 issue of the New Yorker