User:Gabriella.Amesbury/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: (link)
 * Workplace harassment
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I have chosen this article because I feel that it is important for the available information about workplace harassment to be accurate so workers can understand when it applies to them and how they can get help (Ex. Reaching out to the HR department or seeking legal assistance).

Lead evaluation
The Lead of the article is short in its description of the topic, but is not a comprehensive introduction to the article's major sections. It begins with an introductory sentence that clearly defines workplace harassment for readers, which is then followed by an explanation of why it is considered an issue. In this explanation, workplace harassment is highlighted as an issue in Asian countries in particular. This statement is irrelevant, however, because the article is meant to focus only on workplace harassment in the United States (as shown in the table of contents). Asian countries are not brought up again, therefore there is information in the Lead that is not present in the article. The Lead also fails to acknowledge some of the article's major sections, with no mention of the kinds of victims, impacts, and preventions that the article covers. Types of workplace harassment is a major section that shows up in the Lead to an extent; emotional harassment is covered through examples given but physical harassment goes unmentioned until later in the article.

Content
The article's content is relevant to the topic of workplace harassment. The first section contains an in-depth description of what constitutes harassment, using multiple different ways of defining it. This section is followed by sections which outline the types of workplace harassment, the groups of people who may be victimized by it, the impacts of it on them, and the laws that protect them. However, some information could be added to the "Victims" and "Preventions" sections. For the former, the section begins with a statement that victims can be separated into three groups (gender, sexual orientation, and race), but says that one group experiences harassment more than the others without pointing out the group that does. None of this information is cited. This idea that victims can only be within one of the three groups disregards those who may experience harassment and discrimination in the workplace due to other factors, examples including their age, religion, or even work performance. Furthermore, the race piece of the section majorly covers the experiences of black workers, with a small mention of Asian Americans, and could be improved by speaking about discrimination against other groups. Transgender people could also be added into the piece on gender. This expansion of information would help the article to address more topics related to historically underrepresented groups. Regarding the latter, the "Preventions" section covers a law that is used to protect workers against workplace harassment, as well as the details of some court cases. A good addition to this section would be methods that organizations use to prevent workplace harassment, such as running sensitivity training courses and encouraging employees to speak up when they notice it occurring. The content is not very up-to-date in that the sources used are quite old, but the information covered is still applicable to today.
 * Content evaluation

Tone and balance evaluation
The article is majorly neutral in its position, using facts to show readers what workplace harassment encompasses and how it affects victims. However, some statements stand out as biased against victims, going so far as to blame them for the harassment. The first statement is located in the "Types" section of the article, within the description of physical harassment. Certain careers are highlighted as requiring “a higher tolerance for sexual behaviours”. This statement puts the responsibility of tolerating inappropriate treatment by colleagues and customers on the workers, rather than stating more neutrally that workers in these positions are more likely to experience sexual harassment. Later on in the article, possible reasons for workplace bullying are listed. Within this list, it is suggested that victims of the bullying may be causing the behaviour, again putting responsibility on those being harassed. It continues, justifying that it has been found that it is likely the victim’s mental disorders are the cause of the abuse from their colleagues. The source that is cited for these statements says in its abstract that reasons for workplace bullying can not be looked at from just one perspective, an idea which these summaries in the article fail to capture. Though the complexity of capturing the reasons for bullying is mentioned directly after, these biased statements should not be included at all. Aside from these statements, the article appears to be neutral in its position and provides data for readers to come to their own conclusions with.

Sources and references evaluation
Most of the facts presented in the article are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information; the majority of the citations in the "References" section of the article originate from peer-reviewed academic journals from a variety of disciplines (Ex. Law, psychology, management, etc.). Not many of these sources are current, however, and few come from after 2010. There are references which do cover issues related to historically marginalized individuals, from studies of gender-related issues and discrimination against members of the LGBT community to those which research victims of addiction. Some of the references have an attached PDF or text that allows direct access to the works cited, but others include links that take readers to the sites which the works can be found on. In the article itself a few pieces of information go without citations, including a direct reference to a study that stated why managers often keep their jobs even if they have been the perpetrators of workplace harassment (located in the introduction to the "Types" section). In addition, some references originate from outside of the United States, despite the article apparently focusing on workplace harassment as it exists in just the U.S..

Organization evaluation
Though the article is well-organized in that the sections it covers reflect the major points of the topic of workplace harassment (definitions, types, victims, impacts, preventions), there are some noticeable grammar mistakes which make it confusing to read at times. Some examples can be found under the “Victims” section of the article. In the introduction to the section, the words “a” and “the” are clearly left out of a statement about the far reaching effects of workplace harassment. Furthermore, under the “sexuality” piece of the section, a statement about individual members of the LGBT community concealing their sexuality from their colleagues refers to the community as a whole by stating that it “conceals its sexuality in the workplace” which is confusing.

Images and Media
The article contains only two images, which are both taken from Wikimedia Commons and therefore adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. The first is a photo of Anita Hill, an alleged victim of workplace harassment. The photo is located under the "Types" section of the article, next to the description of physical harassment; her alleged experience of sexual harassment by her supervisor Clarence Thomas is used as an example of this type of harassment. The second image is of a shipyard in Jacksonville, it is located under the "Preventions" section of the article and next to a sexual harassment court case that was reported by a female employee of the Jacksonville Shipyard. The first image could be used to enhance understanding of the topic by providing an example of someone who was involved in a well-publicized case of physical harassment, but the second does not appear to be useful for doing so. The fact that the case took place at a shipyard is not relevant to the workplace harassment that occurred. Both images are well captioned, the former explains who Anita Hill is and her case against her manager and the latter describes what the location pictured is. The layout of the images does not appear to be entirely visually appealing, as they are very spaced out in the article, leaving a lot of empty space without photos in between.
 * Images and media evaluation

Talk page evaluation
This article is listed as "of interest" to four WikiProjects; these are WikiProject Business, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health, WikiProject Psychology, and WikiProject Sociology. For WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health, the article is rated as "B-class, High-importance". The rest of the projects give the article a rating of "Start-class, Mid-importance". On the talk page for this topic, one user said that they were planning to convert the page to cover workplace harassment in the United States specifically, which was resisted by another user who pointed out the fact that some of the works cited are not from America. Two more users give feedback on the content of the article. The first calls for more information to be added to the "Victims" section to cover more groups, and the second points out the inappropriate nature of a comment that victims may be responsible for the harassment they experience themselves (located in the "Types" section under emotional harassment, as I addressed in the Content Evaluation).

Overall evaluation
Overall, I would label the article as unfinished and in need of improvement. It does have its strengths, for example its inclusion of examples of court cases gives readers a perspective into how workplace harassment can play out in the real world, and it goes in depth on its definition of the topic. The "Impacts" section is another strength, as the impact of workplace harassment on victims is an important factor to consider. Nevertheless, the article could also use some changes to make it complete, as it currently appears underdeveloped. Though the structure and sections it has in place need not be changed, the information within these sections should be. A good place to start improving the article would be to determine if it will be used to cover the topic of workplace harassment as it exists only in the United States, or internationally. If the former, the title of the article can be changed to reflect this specificity, while facts and sources that originate from outside of the country are removed. For the latter, more information about the issue in workplaces around the world can be added. In either instance, the "Victims" and "Preventions" sections can be improved upon by expanding the amount of information provided by them. For the "Victims" section this means adding more groups where possible, and for the "Preventions" section this means adding more information on ways individual organizations can prevent workplace harassment. Additionally, relevant sources from recent years can be added into the article, and biased statements should be removed or reworded to be more neutral.