User:GillAnderson/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: American Sign Language
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I chose this article because I have always found sign language really intriguing since I was taught some when I was in Kindergarten; Although I don't remember a whole lot, I would love to learn more about it and eventually maybe even become fluent when I am older.

Lead

 * Guiding questions

The Lead does include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes American Sign Language. It does include a brief description of the article's major sections, although it doesn't mention all of the sections. The Lead does not include information that is not present in the article. Considering how long the entire article is, I would say that the Lead is concise enough to be effective but not overly detailed.


 * 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?

Content

 * Guiding questions

The article's content is definitely related to sign language as a whole and all of the content belongs. The content is up-to-date, it was last edited on September 7, 2020. The American Sign Language article does address the topic of a historically underrepresented populations because it talks about the deaf and hard of hearing community as well as the stigmas surrounding sign language as a community language.


 * 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?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

This article appears to be mostly neutral and factual to a point--but slightly biased towards sign language being underrepresented as well as beneficial to incorporate more in American culture. I think that a bias like that is very reasonable because I cannot see why anyone would have anything negative to say about more people learning sign language and the benefits that it would reap in becoming more of a community language than it has historically been. Because of this, I don't think that the "bias" in support of sign language that this article shows is a bad thing in any way, nor do I think that the article is pushy or over-suggestive in attempt to persuade the reader to learn the language.


 * 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

All of the facts in the article are backed up by a reliable source and citation for the source. Although I'm sure that there are thousands of more articles about American Sign Language that could have been used as sources, I think that the sources used are thorough and provide enough information on the topic. All of the links that I checked for external Wikipedia pages worked, and only one of the links to the articles in the reference list didn't work for me. Some of the sources referenced are fairly old (i.e. one from 1960), however I think that the information was still relevant enough to use the source.


 * 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?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions

I think that the organization of the article is well done. It is concise and broken up in relevant and clear sections which detail different aspects of American Sign Language and its history. I didn't notice any spelling or grammatical errors and overall, I think that this page is very well organized.


 * 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

The article includes helpful and relevant images and videos that enhance the understanding of sign language. The image captions are concise but through. I believe that all the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. The only constructive criticism that I have on the media is that the images are almost all inserted on the right side of the page and I think it would be nice to have some images incorporated in between the paragraphs on the left or the center of the page to break up the load of written information.


 * 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 talk page is minimal but it offers mostly suggestions and feedback as to how to improve the page. The article is listed as a level-5 vital article in society, according to the talk page. We haven't talked a lot about American Sign Language specifically in class but I think that the article does a good job of representing the disability community and the ways that American Sign Language is an important part of the deaf community as well as those in regular communication with someone in the deaf or hard of hearing community. In terms of WikiProjects, this article is a part of WikiProjects Languages, WikiProject Deaf, WikiProject United States, and WikiProject Caribbean/Barbados.


 * 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

Overall, I think that the article is very informational and educational. It is very strong in knowledge about the history as well as the geographic distribution and regional variation in sign language. I think that the article could be improved by adding specific names of people when sharing their stories on the page because it would make the page more personable and intimate. Other than that, I think the article is well-developed and educational on the topic.


 * 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

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: Talk:American Sign Language