User:Aristatertotle/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Brazilian War of Independence)

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 was interested in surveying and editing this article because the subject matter was interesting. My interests in geopolitics tend towards stories of ethnicity and sovereignty and the historical discourse surrounding Portuguese influence in Brazil echoes much of this as the nuanced, independent Brazil continued speaking Portuguese, continued commercial associations with Portugal, and in fact with time there was even a shift in economic influence from Portugal to Brazil due to the latter country's larger size and economy. This article is important because narratives of independence and especially the sentiments surrounding revolutionary history are at times subject to transformative modern interpretations of these events through modern political lenses - it is important to have the facts about such events documented faithfully for the preservation of their narrative within their period. My preliminary impression of the article was confusion, vexation even, with its brevity. For a page covering such an important event to only have four different cited sources, three of which entirely in Portuguese (aside from an abstract), led me to ask questions regarding the reliability of the article's information and the accessibility of the cited sources.

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

Does the lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article’s topic?

Yes, the introductory sentence concisely explains who the key combatants in the conflict were and over what span of time the conflict was waged, including mention of Brazilian independence.

Does the lead include a brief description of the article’s major sections?

The content within the lead can be broken down and allocated to the various major sections; therein the lead prepares you for the article's major sections.

Does the lead include information that is not present in the article? (It shouldn’t.)

All of the information in the lead seems present elsewhere in the article, where appropriate.

Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

The lead seems concise, but at a glance looks quite messy with the number of territories, provinces, etc. that are mentioned.

Content

Is this article’s content relevant to the topic?

The article's content is seems aptly relevant to the topic.

Is the content up-to-date?

The absence of some casualty figures makes this content difficult to completely document, but otherwise seems to encompass all the relevant core information regarding the conflict.

Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Casualty data being unreliable or absent leads to a casualty range being introduced, otherwise there does not seem to be content which does not belong.

Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia’s equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

The article briefly discusses the enlistment of Brazilian slaves and foreign immigrants into the war effort, however does not further elaborate on the experiences of these slaves or immigrants.

Tone and Balance

Is the article neutral?

At a glance, the article seems neutral; however, through the "Opposing forces" section it appears that special attention is paid to the distribution of Portuguese soldiers and not Brazilian soldiers. If this information is provided for Portuguese soldiers, it seems intuitive to include the same information for Brazilian soldiers to illustrate positional advantages and disadvantages in how forces were positioned and in what quantity.

Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

I was unable to find individual claims that appear heavily biased, although language used throughout the article such as "Arranging crews was another problem" (in relation to manning Brazilian vessels) seems to undermine Brazilian efforts in a way that may skew the narrative towards Portuguese might.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

Much attention is paid to how difficult it was for Brazil to combat Portuguese efforts, but there is not proportional documentation about Portugal's difficulties for much of the article.

Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?

Not particularly, nuanced or fringe understandings of either perspective seem largely absent.

Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

After rereading the article a few times, I suspect there may be bias towards Brazil but this may be the result of poor structure and not entirely purposeful bias.

Sources and References

Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?

No, in fact many of the facts are completely uncited.

Are the sources thorough – i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?

The sources cited seem limited in scope, and in fact two of the sources are from the same text, only pages apart. Use of the sources' understanding of the conflict are incredibly limited compared to the information shared without any citation throughout the article. One of the sources is incredibly extensive, but is entirely in Portuguese which complicated accessibility of the information for non-native speakers/readers of Portuguese.

Are the sources current?

The sources are drawn from a time range of approximately 2009-2012, all relatively recent, but not necessarily current.

Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?

Of the four sources, two of them are written by the same author and are pulled from the same text.

Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (Digging may be required to answer)

The Independence of Brazil by Roderick Cavaliero and Independence or Death: British Sailors and Brazilian Independence, 1822-1825 by Brian Vale both immediately seem like better sources.

Check a few links. Do they work?

Links to two of the sources work, however the Gomes citations seem inaccessible from Wikipedia (however ISBN information is available).

Organization and writing quality

Is the article well-written – i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?

The article seems disorganized in that some information between sections could likely be afforded their own subsections but are instead grouped with more general ideas. For example, a section could be allocated for foreign and slave involvement in the war, but that information is instead tagged onto the "Start of the war" section.

Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?

There was not any noticeable grammatical or spelling errors.

Is the article well-organized – i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

The article could certainly benefit from being broken down further into more specific sections, as it stands the organization is so generalized it may serve to weaken the overall article by making each section's content unnecessarily dense.

Images and Media

Does the article include images that enhance the understanding of the topic?

There are few images, however the paintings included could enhance understanding of the topic if spaced apart from each other and alongside the sections that correspond to them.

Are images well-captioned?

The first image used, composed of multiple paintings, is uncoordinated in its labels - which painting corresponds to which explanation is something the reader must intuit and is not provided immediately in the description, which seems short-sighted. In fact, one of those paintings is used individually later in the article and labeled differently from any of the initial provided descriptions.

Do all images adhere to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations?

Paintings depicted throughout the article seem old enough that they may exist in the public domain, however this is not made clear.

Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

I would not personally say the images are laid out in a visually appealing way. The portrait of José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva seems misplaced next to the "Naval action" section, or at least his significance is not expressed or elaborated upon. In fact, he is never mentioned in the article outside of that photo, not even in the list of commanders and leaders.

Talk page discussion

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

One Wikipedian claims that there was never a war of independence, another discusses information that seems to have been edited out of the article for incorrect dating.

How is the article rated? Is it part of any WikiProjects?

The article is rated as a C-class, level-5 vital article and is labeled as important in its association to Brazil, Portugal, and International Relations WikiProjects.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we’ve talked about it in class?

There does not seem to be any polarizing differences between the Wikipedia and class discourse surrounding Brazilian independence.

Overall impressions

What is the article’s overall status?

The article feels incomplete. It requires more citations to strengthen the existing share of information.

What are the article’s strengths?

The article's strengths lie in its comprehensiveness, however this is far less meaningful without the proper citation.

How can the article be improved?

The article could be improved vastly by supplementing or entirely revising information where appropriate with proper citation.

How would you assess the article’s completeness – i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

The article has a competent foundation of information, however it seems poorly developed. Few citations and poor organization led me to this evaluation.