User:Carolynyoung31/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: Rwandan genocide
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate: I wanted something that would be a political and controversial topic and thus could lack neutrality or have other biases. I also liked that it was a historic event in African politics and thus won't be too different from the topic I choose.

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?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The first sentence was very good. It gave important facts and nothing else. I would argue that the lead could be more concise in its wording, but it isn't egregiously long. It does not include information that isn't present in the article. I would say the lead may be overly detailed.

Content

 * Guiding questions

Yes, the content is very relevant. It addresses the main political factors that people would want to know such as the history of it as well as its political significance domestically and internationally. The content appears to be up to date, since it does a good job of discussing the modern narrative and rhetoric surrounding the event. I don't see any missing information or anything that doesn't belong.

Is the article's content relevant to the topic?


 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

The article is neutral. It does a good job of mainly reciting facts. I never saw an authors voice inserted into any of the information. I did detect a tiny bit of bias when it talked about the US's response to the crisis. It focused on the fact that many US lawmakers regret not acting sooner and the article only focused on quotes from those people. Perhaps, that is the consensus of US policymakers but the article never said whether this regret was just from a few people or everyone, so it felt like the article was emphasizing that the US should feel regret. But, that's just a small note. I also saw people arguing over bias in the talk section a lot. It was harder for me to deduce the degree of bias because I'm not incredibly well-versed in the minute details of the event, but it seems that bias is a reoccurring issues to many editors. The instances of bias however seemed to be regarding smaller details, but the article at large didn't try to persuade anyone on a specific argument or position.


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions

Yes, the article is well cited with reputable sources. I think I only saw one note where it said "citation needed". The sources are current, which is especially good because the Rwandan genocide happened in 1994 and there are sources from 2018. I checked several links and they worked.


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions

I thought it was very well-written. I didn't see any grammatical or spelling errors. I thought it was pretty well-organized, which was especially good because there's so much to cover that I appreciated how easy it was to find different subtopics. I think the choices made regarding what sections to create within the topic were chosen well.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions

Yes, there were relevant images with captions that explained them. The images are laid out well and seem to follow copyright regulations.


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions

The conversation seemed mainly focused on fact-checking. There were a few sentences taken out because they weren't cited properly and appeared dubious. It is rated as B-class and is part of several projects: WikiProject Africa/Democratic Republic of Congo/Rwanda, Disaster Management, Human rights, Death, Philosophy, Crime, Ethnic Groups, Discrimination,

I would say that this article carries a much more neutral tone. Often in class, people are very clear about their critique of certain governments. I also think wikipedia does a good job of laying down the facts because often when its discussed the Rwandan genocide is usually used as an example for big philosophical or sociological questions. We often don't cover the events in that much detail.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions

The article is a level 4-vital article. I think the strengths of it are that it covers a great deal of information and does so efficiently. I think the big weakness is that even when the authors overall do a good job of keeping a neutral tone, it is hard to find neutral information on this topic so I think naturally bias will be introduced more in this article than other ones. Also, it is a very controversial topic for some people and thus there is a higher chance of bias being introduced. We see from the talk section, that it certainly has been an issue over some of the article's details. I think the article can be improved, by always having several sources for the same piece of information, because this will lessen instances of bias. Overall, I think the article is very complete in terms of the amount of information it offers but it needs to be continually revised and checked for bias and dubious sources, especially given its sensitive nature.

What is the article's overall status?


 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

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

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