User:Bekah01/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: Legal history
 * This topic is interesting to me because after my time at UAlbany I am planning to go to Albany Law and become a lawyer.

Lead

 * Guiding questions
 * The legal history page has a very concise lead. Even though it may seem detailed, the topic in which it is describing is a very complex topic. The article describes different laws during different time periods, so the lead must set down a good base and briefly describe each major time period.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? - Yes
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? -yes
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? -no
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? - Concise

Content

 * Guiding questions

This article contains relevant information to the topic and is all update, however it only discusses modern European and United States legal systems. This topic describes many different types of legal systems, this meaning that it also describes underrepresented populations. One of the underrepresented populations is Islamic law.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? -yes
 * Is the content up-to-date? -yes
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? -yes, missing
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics? -yes

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

This article displays information on different types of legal systems and concepts, therefore there are no positions in order to be biased on. There is a lack of information on the earlier legal systems compared to the newer ones and that is because of how old they are. There also seems to not be a lot of information on the United States, but that is because they have a general statement about how each state has a separate court system and does not go deeper than that.


 * Is the article neutral? -Yes
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? -No
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? -yes
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? -no

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?    -yes
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?     -yes
 * Are the sources current? -yes
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible? -yes
 * Check a few links. Do they work? -yes

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? -the article is well-written, however the reader must have some sore of background knowledge on the subject.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? -no
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? -yes, it is broken down into major time periods/places.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? - not really no. there are two images however they don't enhance the topic all that much.
 * Are images well-captioned? -yes
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? -yes
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? -yes, I just wish there were more.

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 not many questions or comments on this article, however the majority of them talk about what people have edited and how the article can be improved by relating the sections to one another.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? - it is a level-4 vital article in history and is in the scope of WikiProject History.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? - the way people have discussed this topic on Wikipedia seems to mirror the class really well, some people have ideas about the direction the article should go and they work as a community. While this class also has talked about talk pages and the communities in place.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? - start-class
 * What are the article's strengths?- the strengths are talking about ancient and legal systems all over the world.
 * How can the article be improved? - it could be improved by trying to work each topic into each other and see how communities learned off of each others systems.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? - this it is well-developed, however it needs fine tuning to make it really flow together.

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

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: [I see that wikipedia has a law in africa page, however this page defining legal history does not touch on the legal history of countries within or even africa as a whole. Is this something this page should touch upon? RCBekah01 (talk) 23:43, 8 September 2020 (UTC) ]