User:Annarafferty/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Hélène Kuragina
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I find Hélène to be an absolutely fascinating character from Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, and additionally, I believe she is often overlooked or misrepresented in commentaries and adaptations. I wanted to see which information Wikipedians chose to provide about her out of the 1300 pages of the novel, since there is definitely room for bias when it comes to her actions and decisions throughout the novel. In some cases, the bias might be seen as justified, but I wanted to know whether or not the neutral tone that is supposed to be attributed to Wikipedia made it into her article.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes, the Lead introduces the character, what novel she is from, and the names of notable portrayals of her throughout various adaptations. It is concise and clear, letting readers know exactly who the article will be about.
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? No, the Lead does not describe the article's major sections because there is only one major section, namely Biography. Instead, the Lead focuses on portrayals of the character and the novel she comes from.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? Yes; the Lead cites adaptations of the novel that are never addressed in the rest of the article. Since there is only one section of the article, perhaps the editor(s) did not think it was important enough to list the rest of the adaptation titles and dates in the article.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? The lead is very concise and provides just enough information to be clear, without giving so much that the reader becomes lost in the details. It provides the relevant and prominent aspects of the character before moving on.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? Yes, the content of the article is primarily a biography of the character named in the article title. Although the article is rather short, the content that is there is relevant to the topic of Hélène Kuragina as a character.
 * Is the content up-to-date? The last edit was January 29, 2020, so the content on this page seems to be up-to-date, or at least being continually edited alongside new information and adaptations.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? There is no content that does not belong, but there is missing content. For example, the References section is entirely blank and there is only one other section, Biography. With such a nuanced and important character, there should definitely be more content listed in the article.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? I do not think this article is entirely neutral. In the biography, the language is often heavily slanted towards favoring Hélène's husband, Pierre, and leaves out her say in many matters. For example, it assumes that the reason she married Pierre was for social and financial advantage, yet in the novel, Hélène's father arranged the proposal without Hélène knowing it would happen. Thus, the article is using language that is biased towards her striving for a higher position in society while ignoring the lack of choice she had in the matter.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? As previously stated, many claims in this article appear to be heavily biased against Hélène's character. While there are certain moments that are questionable surrounding her character, the bias extends towards how she interacts with her husband and the man she is having an affair with. Had the information been presented in an unbiased fashion, the heavily slanted adjectives would not exist within the article.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? I think Hélène's value within society is an underrepresented viewpoint, especially since she holds so much power within the novel. Currently, the editor focuses on her relationships as opposed to the ways in which she influenced moving parts of the story. Additionally, I think her relationship with her husband is overrepresented, especially with how far they drifted apart throughout the novel.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? From what I have read, this article attempts to persuade the reader that Hélène falls more on the morally black side of the argument as opposed to morally grey. While some of her actions are definitely unjustifiable, it is unfair to persuade readers in certain directions when it comes to actions that one or more other characters played a significant role in creating.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? No. This article does not have ANY References listed; the section is entirely blank.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? There are no sources, so they cannot be reliable.
 * Are the sources current? There are no sources, so they cannot be current.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? There are no sources or links, so they cannot work.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? I think the article is fairly well-written in terms of being clear and concise, ignoring the previously mentioned bias. There are some rambling sentences that could be cleaned up, but there are no glaring issues that make me believe this article is not well-written.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? In terms of grammatical errors, there are a few run-on sentences that would read better if they were split up or reworded, but there are no blatant spelling errors or grammar mistakes that would lead me to discredit the reliability of the author.
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? No, the article is not well organized. Since there is only one section, it is difficult to understand the nuances of the various portrayals and adaptations. Even though this Wikipedia page is focused on one character, it could be much better organized than a simple Biography section and an empty References section. I think there are more major points that could be made into individual sections that reflect more parts of the topic as a whole.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? Despite the fact that there have been multiple portrayals of this character, in addition to physical copies of the novel she exists within, this article does not include any images. I believe it would be beneficial to put images in a section describing the various movie and film adaptations of the character, since certain Wikipedians are looking for a specific version of the novel but would only know which one they want by recognizing the face of the actress, since many of the films are very old or in another language.
 * Are images well-captioned? There are no images, so there are no captions.
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? There are no images, so they cannot adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? There are no images, so they are not laid out on a visually appealing way.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? There are no conversations going on behind the scenes at all, which surprises me because Hélène is a very controversial character. I would think that at least someone would be trying to justify their work on her Biography, but that does not appear to be the case. Even more interestingly, her page has been edited recently, yet there is still no conversation happening.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? This article is a part of two WikiProjects, Novels and Fictional Characters. Within the Novels WikiProject, this article is rated as Stub-Class and Low Importance, and within the Fictional Characters WikiProject, this article is rated as Stub-Class. This means that within both of these projects, the article is a very basic description of the topic.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? The way Wikipedia discusses this topic differs greatly from the way we've talked about it in class because it does not provide any of the reliable sources we placed such a high value on. Additionally, we discussed using unbiased language and providing the internet with neutral and informative content in class, neither of which this Wikipedia article seems to discuss the topic with.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? I would say this article's overall status is unfinished, since it is lacking sources, subtopics, and an expansion on the material that is already listed. I would like to see more neutral language used and more detail going into the description of the events Hélène is involved in throughout the novel. Since it is such a large book, it seems unlikely that all of her activities can be summed up in three paragraphs.
 * What are the article's strengths? This article's strengths lie in its abilities to succinctly introduce characters and describe relationships. With so many characters in the novel, it can be quite confusing to constantly introduce new relationships, but the current state of the article does manage to do this fairly well. Additionally, I liked how the character's name was provided in both the English and Cyrillic alphabets, since both are very important to the history of the character and the novel as a whole.
 * How can the article be improved? This article can be improved primarily through an expansion of the ideas that have already been laid out and an addition of a solid References section to the novel and the subsequent adaptations. Additionally, the grammar and rambling nature of certain sentences could be improved to bring up the overall quality of the article. Furthermore, this page makes no mention of Hélène's mother, who is in fact a minor character in the novel.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? I would say that this article is not complete. I think it is under and poorly developed and requires significant work to be done before it can be considered to be on the path towards completeness. However, with that work, I believe this could be a very strong and informative article that provides insight into a very interesting and nuanced literary character.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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 * Link to feedback: Talk:Hélène Kuragina