User:Haley315/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Deinstitutionalisation

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because I learned a little bit about deinstitutionalization in the sociology courses I have taken. Deinstitutionalization is an important topic because it is a major step in the development, and sometimes regression, of services for people with mental illnesses. My preliminary impression is based on deinstitutionalization in the U.S. in the 20th century, where psychiatric hospitals were shut down across the country and many of the patients who resided in them were released, transferred to other hospitals, or incarcerated.

Lead section
The lead sentence of the article clearly defines deinstitutionalization. The rest of the section mentions some of the history of deinstitutionalization, how it worked and some results of deinstitutionalization, causes, and reactions to deinstitutionalization from different perspectives. The section does not, however, explicitly discuss the worldwide applications and instances of deinstitutionalization, even though it is the third section in the contents. Overall, the lead section is concise and gives a general description of deinstitutionalization.

Content
The content of this article is relevant to the topic of deinstitutionalization, with information about its history, consequences, and how it happened and is happening worldwide. The article includes the perspectives, input, and criticism of experts in the field, as well as evidence from different studies to demonstrate the impact of deinstitutionalization. From what I can gather, there is not any information that is irrelevant, but the content is lacking for deinstitutionalization in non-Western countries. The article does address topics related to historically underrepresented populations, namely the disabled community and people with mental illnesses.

Tone and Balance
The article is written from a neutral point of view, describing the history of institutionalization, reform, deinstitutionalization, and reinstitutionalization. Misconceptions of deinstitutionalization are mentioned and refuted neutrally using evidence from large, peer-reviewed studies. There are criticisms and opinions on deinstitutionalization listed within the article, but they are the opinions of experts in the field and cited as such. The article does not try to persuade the reader in favor of or against deinstitutionalization.

Sources and References
For the most part, all of the information in the article is cited, but there are a few sections where citations are needed, such as in the Medication subsection of the Consequences section, and in the Hong Kong subsection of the Worldwide section. The sources are very thorough, and come from a wide range of authors from different perspectives, time periods, and countries. Most of the sources are peer-reviewed studies, articles from reputable journals, and books. The sources are not all current, but the topic of deinstitutionalization is historical. The most recent sources I saw were from 2015, though all the links I checked were valid.

Organization and Writing Quality
The article is clear and easy to read. Some of the information is dense, such as the many policy changes in the process of deinstitutionalization and the studies with many types of information on its effects, but it is presented in a streamlined and logical way. The sections of the article do reflect the major points of the topic.

Images and Media
There are two images included in the article, both of which are well-captioned and provide insight into the long history of institutionalization and then later, deinstitutionalization. The layout of the images corresponds to the specific information presented alongside it.

Talk Page Discussion
The article is related to the WikiProjects for social work, psychology, medicine, and sociology, and is rated B-class for all four. There have been conversations as recently as in 2019 about improving neutrality of the article, and other earlier conversations about bugs and fixing external links.

Overall Impressions
This is a good, mostly complete article. Its strengths are incorporating information from many studies on the effects of deinstitutionalization as well as information about the step-by-step process of deinstitutionalization in Western countries. There could be more information about non-Western countries, such as in Africa, Asia, and South America. The article is not fully developed yet, and could use more current perspectives and more information about non-Western deinstitutionalization.