User:BigHeadPhilippe/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Direct action

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
It relates to my class' subject area and holds information related to democratic theory.

Evaluate the article
The Lead Section is convoluted and lacks concision. The wording offers a detailed overview of the topic, but the length of the sentence and variety of grammatical structures makes it a confusing introduction to the topic. The content of the article covers a wide swath of topics and notable figures related to the main theme; however, the writing is disjointed and does not offer a clear overview of what each section covers. The majority of the article focuses on perspectives from notable historical figures, but has no real coherency between the different perspectives offered. The article offers a very balanced overview of Direct Action by stating facts about the topic in a plain, direct way. The balance of the article might improve if editors focused on delineating debates within the topic seeing as the definition of direct action may open it to methods used by non-left wing groups even though the article is clear that that terminology is favored by leftist organizations. The article employs a wide variety of strong sources, making it a very good foundation for a more detailed, concise article in the future. The talk page demonstrates that current editors are very aware of these downfalls and taking steps to address needed changes--specifically article structure, writing quality, and historical perspective bias. An interesting conversation on the topic page focuses around the fact that some editors believe the current definition of Direct Action is much too broad, leading to the article's other problems with theoretical and historical perspective descriptions. Overall, the article seems to be experiencing growing pains. With a set of great sources, a variety of perspectives, and a general wide swathe of historical overviews, the article has everything it needs to be concise, effective, and emblematic of good Wikipedia editing. To get there, the article has to become far more concise with a much narrower definition of Direct Action while maybe introducing a "controversies" section to delineate and elaborate on the debate surrounding the use of the terminology of "direct action."