User:Arichy02/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Cuban Missile Crisis

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 chose this article because the Cuban Missile Crisis is something I have a little bit of familiarity with, but not a ton. I felt that I would be able to identify if the information was at least mostly correct, while also having an opportunity to gain new insight on the event. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a super important moment in International Relations and it also solidified many Latin American countries roles as pawns in the Cold War. My preliminary impression was that the article was super detailed and clearly had many edits made. There was a ton of information to look at.

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.)

The lead for this article is definitely information heavy. While the introductory sentence does clearly describe the article's topic it is a bit long and makes discerning the article's point of focus difficult. All the information in the introduction is present in the article. I think the introduction gets too specific in a couple places, such as the make and model of the missiles that were present and removed from Cuba. The lead does not provide a clear description of the article's major sections.

There is a ton of content present in this article. Pretty much information on any moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis can be found here. The content is up to date and edits have been made this month. The content is delivered in a neutral tone, avoiding opinions and strong language when explaining the actions of both Khrushchev and Kennedy. There is plenty of information on both Soviet and US actions, providing a balanced account of the events. Since the language is neutral, the article does not try to sway readers. The actual Cuban involvement is, however, underrepresented. Other than a short section at the end of the article on Castro's actions post-Crisis, there is little information on how Cuba was socially or economically affected by the Crisis.

While there are a few instances where an editor has pointed out that something needs citation or has been cited incorrectly, the citations and references on this article are mostly good. There are a ton of sources linked, most of which are scholarly articles or books. There are primary sources present, which can be troublesome if they are the only source being used because they present a biased account of an event, but they are more than balanced out by strong secondary sources. For a more balanced account, primary sources from Soviet and Cuban leaders could be added to the references as they are mostly U.S. sources. The links I checked did work and led me to the correct places.

This article can be difficult to read because there has been so much information added. Some parts read as though everyone wanted to add any detail they knew. Since the article is broken down into many smaller sections, navigating the article for a specific piece of information is not difficult, though. In the sections I read, there were no grammatical errors and the writing was concise.

Some parts of the article have many pictures, while others have few. The article would be more visually appealing with more photos in a few sections, such as the "later revelations" section. The photos I looked at followed copyright guidelines and had clear captions; I could understand what the photo was showing me without having the read the corresponding section.

The talk page for this article is messy. Wikipedia has a banner at the top saying that the article is "controversial and may spark dispute." Many of the comments have several replies. It is rated as a B-Class article and is part of WikiProjects Vital Articles, as it is such an important moment in history.

Overall this is a super in-depth article covering many facets of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The article could become more well-rounded by including more information of the effects of the event on Cuba. Since the event is so well-known there is occasionally an overload of information and specificity.