User:Hannahmcfadden/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
How Brown Saw the Baseball Game

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because it seemed interesting to me and in connection to communication, this is an article about a short film which is silent so interpretation and how the film is portrayed to the audience is "communicated" in a different way other than verbal communication. This article matter because it goes into detail about what the film is about and talks more about the production and reception the film had. My preliminary impression of the article was overall interesting which made me choose this article in the first place. The information involved in this write up is short and to the point but gives enough information to leave the reader informed on what the film truly is.

Evaluate the article
lead section:

The leading sentence does include an introductory sentence to what exactly the article is going to be about, in this case the article is about a short silent comedy film about how Brown saw the baseball game. This article does indeed include a brief description of the articles major sections. The article talks about Mr. Brown who is a baseball fan who drinks large amounts of alcohol before watching a baseball game to be able to see the game in reverse motion. The lead only talks about information that will be present in the article, it doesn’t state anything that won’t be talked about later on in the article. I would say that the lead is concise containing the right amount of information to get the reader prepared for what is going to be talked about overall.

content:

The content is relevant to the topic of how Mr. Brown saw the baseball game because within the article is talk about what he did and how it effected him seeing the game of baseball. When it comes to the content being up-to-date, it is in fact up to date because although this film released in 1907, within the article is talks about it being mentioned in 2021. I don’t believe that there is content that is missing or content that doesn’t belong, each section talks about the most important parts of the film and what is contributed in order to create it. This article could deal with one of Wikipedia’s equity gaps in the sense of Browns wife blaming alcoholism on his friend. But overall, this is a movie summary so there isn’t really equity gaps unless you look within the film itself. This article doesn’t really address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics unless you consider black and white films to be apart of that. The film itself talks about things that are still present now. In today’s society, alcohol and baseball are both still very relevant in peoples lives.

tone and balance:

This article is neutral in the sense that this article is about a film. Within talking about this film there is no bias, they are just stating the facts about the article in itself. This also means that there isn’t any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position because once again it is just about the facts.There are no viewpoints that are overrepresented or even underrepresented, the article contains different topics about the film that are important and there is nothing that is too much or too little. Minority and fringe viewpoints are indeed accurately described. When it comes to the attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another, this doesn’t really apply to this article because this type of article is not option based. All this article is doing is talking about the facts of the film therefore there isn’t a need for persuasion.

sources and references:

All the information present in this article are backed up by several resources. The sources are thorough and reflect the information given to the readers in the article. The sources are as current as 2021 which I would consider up to date because this film was produced in 1907 and the most recent reference is 2021 which I would say is pretty relevant. The references are from a wide variety of sources and is diverse in that sense. Since it is talking about a film it can be hard to take information from historical marginalized individuals. I believe the resources that are provided now are good ones and I don’t believe that there are better sources out there that aren’t mentioned. When I did check links they did indeed work, therefore I believe the sources and resources used were a good asset to this article.

organization and writing quality:

This article is very well written and is easy to read and to the point. The grammar and spelling is in check as well. The article is also well organized in a sense of the sections reflecting the major points of the topic.

images and media:

The article only has one image present which is a picture of Siegmund Lubin who works for the company that produced the short film. The image itself is captioned well and shows the connection between the guy and the relevance of who he is to the film. The one image does indeed adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. The one image is also placed next to the section the guy is mentioned in which shows thought in where to put the image and is placed in a good spot in the article itself. I wish there were images from the film itself to show a little more of a connection such a Mr. Brown at the baseball game or something like that.

talk page discussion:

On the articles talk page there has been no conversations going on behind the scenes. It also talks about on this page that it has been identified as "one of the best articles produced on wikipedia". The rating of this article is FA class and is apart of wiki project baseball and wikiproject American silent films. This article is duscussed differently in class because it is sort of like a summary but leaves out the ending kind of like when you watch a trailer in a movie.

overall impressions:

The overall status of the article is graded FA class and is a featured article. The strengths of this article included a strong opening sentence telling the reader what they were reading about. Another strength was the amount of information in such a short article which summed up what the film was about and the production behind making the film. The article could've been improved by adding a few sentences that talked about the actors in the production section about who played who in the film to give a little more information into who and what the film was so we can imagine the actors while reading the plot and leading section. Overall I believe the article is complete and well-developed. As I have mentioned before the article was short and to the point while giving enough information but not too much about the film itself to leave the reader wondering how the film ends.