User:Acd3698/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Prestige (sociolinguistics)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I went through the series of academic articles provided by a link in this exercise. I searched through a ton of linguistic articles, going down a rabbit hole with each click. I eventually landed on prestige, which is considered a subtopic of linguistic controversy/discrimination. I think that prestigious language is a tool and a great skill to have, but can be used, more times than not, in a way to condescend. This is an important conversation to have in regards to discrimination. My preliminary impression was that the article was going to do just that, examine how prestige can be discriminatory.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section:
There is an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the topic of prestige. The information present in the lead is all present within the article. It sets up the sections, but it is a bit wordy and I think is overly detailed for an introduction. Some of the information could have been left to the body of the article.

Content:
The content is relevant to the overall topic. Some information could be considered out of date, like a reference from the 1950s. But other than that, everything else seems to be presently appropriate. It discusses social class in reference to prestige. It speaks of how different social classes will imitate higher class language, in order to be accepted. This addresses one of Wikipedia's equity gaps.

Tone and Balance:
The article is neutral. I did not witness any claims that appear to be heavily biased or in an attempt to persuade and sell a particular position. I think the author does a good job of presenting the information equally and with the intent of simply sharing information. I do not get the feeling they have an agenda with this article, but rather to teach about the topic of prestige in the context of different languages. The article does not overrepresent or underrepresent a viewpoint.

Sources and References:
The sources of this article are very thorough, and every point of information can be backed up by a source. The majority of the sources range from the 1980s to the early 2000s, but there are some that date back to 1944. I think these are fairly current, except for the extreme case. There is a variety of authors present, all from different backgrounds. Many of the links are workable as well.

Organization and Writing Quality:
This article is 100% well-written. It is very easy to read and understand, being clear and concise with the variety of information it presents. It is well organized and I did not catch any spelling or grammatical errors.

Images and Media:
This article does not include any images, which I think makes sense because it is a piece about language. This means that the rest of the considerations for images and media are not applicable.

Talk page Discussion:
Most of the conversations taking place are fixing references, and information taken from them. There is talk about what information is correct if a reference is actually making the stated claim, and whether the author gave credit correctly. This article is rated C-class, and is a part of numerous WikiProjects.

Overall Impressions:
Generally, the consensus on this article is that it needs updating. Major revision is harsh, but C-class means it is missing important content, and needs considerable revision. This is honestly surprising to me because I was under the impression that this was a fairly strong article, besides some outdated sources. But, I think the author's tone and word choice are a strength. I got through this reading with ease and ended with a good understanding of the main points and ideas.