User:DreamyRenaissance/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Giulia Farnese

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen to evaluate the Wikipedia article about Giulia Farnese because of her relevance to our simulated papal election. This article is important because Giulia Farnese was a key figure during the Renaissance, and knowing her history can inform us of how gender, sexuality, wealth, and power have been interlinked across history. My initial impression of the Wikipedia article is that it is quite sparse, lacking many details about Giulia's life. Furthermore, the lead section does not do justice to Giulia as a historical figure: there are many more details of her life that could be added into this section to improve the article. In particular, the lead section does not detail much beyond Giulia's appearance; and while this is important for understanding her influence as a noble woman of Italy, there is much more to be said about her that should be included in the reader's first encounter with her article.

Additionally, I believe that the Wikipedia article on Giulia Farnese does not do a strong job of connecting the subsections in the lead section. If I choose to rewrite Giulia's lead section, I would be able to construct a more meaningful picture of her life for readers who do not go beyond this section, allowing for her to be seen as someone who is more than a mistress, a seducer, and a beauty.

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.)

Reading over the Wikipedia article on Giulia Farnese, it is apparent that the article is sparse. Much more could be said of Giulia and her life in order to improve this article. Additionally, there are several unclear statements in the article, for example: "Her second brother, Bartolomeo, became Lord of Montalto in Alessandro's place, married Iolanda Monaldeschi, and had issue. Her third brother, Angelo, was a lord who married Lella Orsini and had female issue. The fourth sibling was a sister, Girolama." The above excerpt should be reworked to better express action, as it is currently unclear what the author had intended to say. What exactly is meant by "had issue"? This is an example of a sentence whose writing quality could be improved. Moreover, the excerpt contains three sentences -- none of which include citations. The quality of this excerpt could be drastically improved by adding citations, which would help both the reader and future editors, like me, who are unsure of what was meant by the phrasing. Measures can be taken to improve the writing quality in this article -- certain statements can be put more naturally, with further elaboration on what is meant.

As a whole, the article currently contains only eight citations, but makes many claims that require references. Many sentences lack citations, and the few citations that do exist are not from reliable, thorough, current, peer-reviewed sources. After clicking on several of the citations, the website pages no longer appear to be functional, meaning that new sources and citations must be added in their place.

Neither of the two images in the article appear to be open-source: one is from Wired, and the other is from DailyStar. This is a problem that must be fixed in order to avoid copyright infringement. New images can be found through the Wikimedia Commons.

The tone of the article is mostly neutral: there are no strong opinions in one way or the other. Most of what is presented is purely factual. There are no visible opinions from previous authors that seem to influence the way that Giulia Farnese is described in her Wikipedia article.

Overall, the article could be improved in many ways -- through clearer writing, more reputable sources, more citations, open-source Wikimedia Commons images, better grammar, and a more sensible layout of sections to improve the flow of the piece. Furthermore, focusing on other areas of Giulia's life in the subsections would provide a greater image of who she was.