User:Camillemcleod/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Marshall Plan

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose the Marshall Plan article because I am currently in the midst of in-depth research on Cold War era policies. I find the Marshall Plan very interesting because of its installation at the start of the Cold War and the tension it contributed to between the United States and the Soviet Union (the focus of my research). Another reason for choosing this article is that for such an important and influential piece of history, I believe the page lacks some details that could improve it.

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 section introduces the topic well and provides a brief overview of the Marshall Plan, and it does touch on most of the later sections of the article. Some of it, however, is overly detailed and would fit better in later sections where it makes sense to go more in depth. As far as content, it is all relevant and appears up to date. It is lacking, however, in sections such as Soviet Negotiations and Stalin's Rejection (which, though it does contain a lot of information and is a large section, is missing content from the USSR's perspective). While the article is not biased or opinionated, it overrepresents the Western perspective while the Soviet Union in particular is heavily underrepresented. It is not done so in a way that persuades the reader one way or the other, but there is a lack of differing viewpoints that undermine the understanding of the Marshall Plan and why it was controversial. The majority of the article is thoroughly backed up by sources, but there are a few major claims made that are missing citations (ex. "The only major powers whose infrastructure had not been significantly harmed in World War II were the United States and Canada." and "Finland, which the USSR forbade to join the Marshall Plan and which was required to give large reparations to the USSR, saw its economy recover to pre-war levels in 1947."). Some of the sources used are from the early 2000s and early 2010s. Although that is not necessarily outdated in the research timeline, heavily researched topics such as the Cold War and the Marshall Plan have more current studies that can be pulled from. The article is concise and without notable errors, and is organized chronologically and by important topic that makes it easy to follow. The images that are used help to give context to the sections they appear under and are labelled with enough information to understand what the reader is looking at. They follow copyright guidelines, and are laid out in similar positioning and in accordance with the section they relate to without distracting from the article. There are no conversations happening on the talk page; only a few comments made on adding/correcting information and references. The article has a B rating in five wikiprojects and a C rating in one (one more project is inactive).

Overall, the article is fairly strong. It has a good representation of the Marshall Plan with a lot of relevant information that for the most part is reliable and accurate. It does need improvement in representing multiple perspectives, however, and would be strengthened with additional citations. Finally, the article is well-developed. It follows the Marshall Plan's inception, it's passage, political pathways, and implications, the reactions to it, and its consequences. The only underdeveloped areas are the previously mentioned lack of certain perspectives such as the Soviet Union.