User:Davitg13/Evaluate an Article

Evaluation of UC Berkeley Department of History Wikipedia Page
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 * Name of article: UC Berkeley Department of History
 * I have chosen this article as it pertains to UC Berkeley itself and I had a conversation with a friend who is a History Major. I thought it would be interesting to explore and learn about what is said on the Wikipedia page itself and compare to what I heard/know from my peers and experiences here.

Lead
The article is clear and concise on what it will be discussing, however, in its Lead, it does not make clear the subsections and details that will be touched on. The Lead includes some information that is not necessarily discussed later and actually makes up a big part of the source of information itself. Although it is concise and detailed, without any unnecessary tangents or outdated sources, the Lead fails to show what the entire article will be about. In fact, one gets an impression that the article is underdeveloped given the fact that the Lead makes up a large portion of the article itself.

Lead evaluation
Overall, the lead, although informative, fails to correctly outline what will come next in the article. The Lead serves to be more of an informative introduction that has little to do with what will follow in the article. In fact, some fo the information in the lead is not even mentioned in the rest of the article itself.

Content
Some of the content of the article seems outdated as it uses statistics pertaining to the Department of History from 2017. If there are statistics on rankings of the department, then they need to be updated on a yearly basis. The content, despite some issues of date, is completely relevant to the article, however a bigger variety of articles could be used to support varying statistics and perspectives on how the department performs annually.

Content evaluation
Overall, I think that the article lacks many details that it could incorporate including what subfields the department has, how it works, and more detailed history regarding its beginnings and progression. It could also discuss notable alumni in more detail and incorporate their works and contributions. Although not a necessary element, the page could discuss some of the achievements and controversies of the department throughout its history at UC Berkeley. It could touch on some courses that have been offered and statistics regarding student enrollment and the departments popularity among students themselves. It is quite evident that this article needs further development as it lack many sections and details.

Tone and Balance
Despite the article lacking depth and detail, it does, for the most part seem unbiased and very neutral as most of the facts are mere history or statistics from reliable sources. One aspect that does strike as being potentially biased is the claim that the department is one of the best in the nation. Although this claim is backed up by an official, reliable source, there are other methodologies and sources that may claim otherwise. It would be good to incorporate these and all similar statistics in order to get a fuller picture.

Tone and balance evaluation
The tone is quite neutral and balanced despite there not being many details and sources to work off of. As mentioned, due to lack of biases (besdies one instance) the article is quite technical and balanced.

Sources and References
Most, but not all facts in the article are backed by reliable secondary sources. While the sources are thorough, there could always be more sources to either backup the same statements further or perhaps introduce nuances and complications, such as to the statement that the department is one of the best in the nation. All sources come from official websites and are working and available.

Sources and references evaluation
Overall, the sources are unbiased and reliable. They are also secondary and readily available. This does not mean that, however, the article has enough sources as it could use much more to back up some of the statements.

Organization
The article is well written without any types of errors. It is also concise and has structure to it. The major problem of the article is the main organization as it misses a lot of information especially included in the Lead. For example, the article includes information in the Lead that is not discussed elsewhere. It could instead make subsections where it will discuss all the information mentioned in the introduction. The article also fails to incorporate detail and delve deep into the subsections it has. It could always discuss further what it has in the subsections and develop the surface-level discussions present.

Organization evaluation
Overall, while the article does have some structure, it could develop the organization more and create further subsections for discussion. It fails to give enough detail to the reader and touched on each topic in a minimal manner.

Images and Media


The article fails to incorporate images and media to further demonstrate its details and discussion.

Images and media evaluation
Given the lack of subsections and detail, it makes sense that the article does not have images or any form of media. The incorporation of these tools, however, could be quite useful in demonstrating facts, alumni, the department's history etc.

Checking the talk page
The article does not have anything on its talk page, showing the lack of detail or even attention payed to the topic itself. The article lacks much perspective and needs many more subsections and details to be complete.

Talk page evaluation
Overall, the talk page is quite disappointing as there was no activity on it, showing the lack of attention that the topic has received thus far on Wikipedia.

Overall impressions

 * The article itself seems to include an interesting topic that could be quite informative and filled with detail. It did, at points, include interesting facts and statistics, however, given the lack of detail, the article did not provide much information. More could and should be added to the article and even a bigger list of links is needed in order to add more perspective and detail. The strengths of the article include its neutral and concise tone, but the weaknesses are the fact that the article simply lacks enough information.

Overall evaluation
Overall, the article seems quite underdeveloped and needs more attention to make it bigger and more in-depth than what it is. Although there is already information to work off of, perhaps further details, some restructuring, and images could be good additions for the article.

Optional activity

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