User:Bstonezag/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: Mass communication
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I searched through the Communication Academic Subject and clicked around until I hit "Mass Communication", which I saw contained a warning header.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * No, not all of them
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Yes, there's a section with no citations "Normally, transmission of messages to many persons at a time is called mass communication. But in a complete sense, mass communication can be understood as the process of extensive circulation of information within regions and across the globe."
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?
 * It's overly detailed, yet lacking introductory information contained in the rest of the article

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * It appears so
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * The newest reference I saw was from 2017, so I think so
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * The section on Convergence reads oddly in a list of types of "mass communication". (Also there's an extra space I want to edit out). It would make more sense with the Lead if there was a small Globalization section.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Yes, including in the Major Theories section
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * No
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * I feel that the topic of written mass communication is touched on briefly throughout the Field of Study and the job types, but not as it's own medium. For example, there's an Audio Media, Social Media, Film and Television sections, and ebooks and so on, but no statement about written communication. With the structure of the article, perhaps the authors felt it was obvious.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?
 * not that I read

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Yes, except the one paragraph I quoted above in the Lead
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * The first source as a 404 error, so that needs to be corrected. The cited notes appear to be a mix of articles, scholarly journal articles, and books while the "References" section is encyclopedia snippets, books, and a poorly-cited study.
 * Are the sources current?
 * Yes, but some need edits
 * Check a few links. Do they work?
 * No, not all

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * The lead was difficult to understand.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Not that I found, just extra spaces
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?
 * Yes, but as I stated, I think there's need for a Global section of some sort where they can stick the section about convergence and flesh out what they're trying to say about the global impact of mass communication with cited sources.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * There are no images
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * N/A
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * N/A
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?
 * N/A

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's an entertaining discussion on the vagueness of the article where it appears the authors are still studying the topic at the university-level. Also, in our training for Wikipedia we're told not to ask people to hold off on citations, but the professor for the course that wrote this article asks people not to delete information without a conversation first in her note from December
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * It's a Level-5 vital article in Society, rated as a Start-Class and is part of the Technology Wikiproject.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
 * The Mass Communication article on Wikipedia is missing information, I feel. Writing is not a focus, and it should be as one of the very first forms of mass communication. There's room for improvement. Digging further, I see this was done for a class assignment summer of 2019 for a Digital Media writing course. Ironic.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * It's a Level-5 vital article in Society, rated as a Start-Class. It's basic and stems from a one month summer course 1.5 years ago. The focus is largely on Journalism and Advertising because that already existed in the article.
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * The overall structure is clear and it will be easy to organize additional information
 * How can the article be improved?
 * Adding a Globalization section and moving convergence there. Fixing broken citation links. Removing extra spaces between sentences.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?
 * The article has much room for improvement and is underdeveloped

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: Talk:Mass communication