User:GabyTopete/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Latino urbanism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate Latino urbanism, because I was struck by its briefness. The contributions of communities that have been historically marginalized are pivotal to the better understanding and development of urban planning. According to the latest census data, Latino people represent 18.5% of the U.S. population. It is surprising to me then that this article is so lacking. Given the influence of Wikipedia in society and the general learning process, more thorough information regarding Latino urbanism and the impact of Latino urban planners is necessary in this article to faithfully reflect their impact in the United States.

Content

 * Briefness : This article is 207 words. While the subject matter is relevant, going off this article, I would characterize it as underrepresented. Even though the article is just one paragraph, I was surprised that there were ten references. I wonder why, if there is a good number of initial sources, the writing is so brief. An aspect of the article that really distracted me was its center. "Latino urbanism as a field is inherently interdisciplinary and includes scholars working in literature, history, anthropology, urban planning, American studies, and more." After each discipline, there is a citation. It bothers me that what appear to be decent sources are underutilized on a list. Saying Latino urbanism combines many disciplines might be acceptable for the lead section, but it is important for that information to be followed by supporting facts from the sources that were simply listed.
 * Defeating its own point : The article includes good arguments about the importance of recognizing Latino voices in urban scholarship. However, the article itself seems to do the same thing it criticizes. It does not provide facts about how these voices have been excluded nor does it exemplify the important contributions it intends to shed a light on. In fact, even though multidisciplinary approaches are discussed, only three concepts or people are specifically mentioned in connection to Latino urbanism (barrio urbanisms, James Rojas, and Rasquachismo).
 * Symbolic about what is missing : After looking at the edit history more closely, I realized that most of the article was written by only one person. I wonder if the author's intention was to start a conversation and intentionally create a list others could use as a springboard. Nevertheless, the subject deserves more than a placeholder. If works and ideas are going to be introduced and referenced, they should be treated in the proper form. Not doing so has the potential to further alienate the subject.

Tone

 * One point : This article wants to communicate one point: the lack of Latino representation in the planning canon. The author(s) does not attempt to hide this fact. However, there is little use of facts to illustrate this point. That is not to say that the point is inaccurate but rather that it appears to provide an opinion and then list sources that may confirm it, instead of presenting the facts through a neutral lens. Therefore, it is my opinion that the tone of this article is not neutral. When a point is made for the sake of making it, and sources are being listed off almost as an afterthought, can we really neutrally and faithfully represent a position?

Moving Forward/Talk Page

 * A good starting point to improve this article would be to faithfully represent the information in the seven good sources already listed. I am hoping that would then lead to more sources and contributions from the Wikipedia community.
 * The Talk page for this article is not active at all. I will try to start a fruitful thread.