User:Heyyo2110/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: COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. The article outlines overarching facts needed to quantify the impacts of healthcare inequities in the modern day.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Lead evaluation
The introductory sentence of the article concisely covers the impact the pandemic has dealt on human life. The topic of COVID-19, however, extends the loss of life and will be improved if information is added regarding the overwhelming of healthcare systems and governmental containment measures against the virus, topics that are also covered in the article's content. The lead of the article itself includes a brief overview of the outlines of the pandemic, impacts on American life, as well as brief notes on the disproportionate impact of the virus on communities of color. This last point is underreported in the rest of the article, and can be improved by having links to relevant articles such as Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In all, I would claim the Lead provides a slight disproportionate amount of detail on the timeline section of the article and can be balanced, but that it addresses the major content covered in the article page.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Content evaluation
The article sufficiently addresses the overarching impact of COVID-19 in the United States, and contains updates referring to passing of the most recent 200,000 death toll mark (as of 9/22). The article describes in detail the context of the pandemic in the U.S., with information from the WHO and the initial outbreak in China. These two pieces of information may not be excessively covered in the article, and could be more concise to provide a more relevant U.S.-focused timeline of the pandemic. The article sufficiently addresses most aspects of the pandemic – geographic demographics, U.S. preparation after past pandemics, government involvement in the pandemic's development, and faux cures circulated in the U.S. However, demographic information falls short of fully explaining disproportionate burden of pandemic responses among some socioeconomic groups. The article focuses can improve by explaining community impacts of COVID-19 in the U.S. rather than taking a wider perspective and only referring to the country as a whole.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Tone and balance evaluation
The article is predominantly neutral, as it avoids qualitative adjectives and statements of the events that occurred over the course of the pandemic. Because the article is fairly comprehensive, most legitimate claims are represented and there is not major political skewing of the article. Some viewpoints do try to persuade the reader into believing the administration is faulted in the pandemic by downplaying concerns regarding the illness in the article's lead. The article may establish new sections that clearly target the controversies regarding certain government practices in light of the pandemic, or it may allow the reader to conclude judgements on the governments response through neutral information already provided in the article.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Sources and references evaluation
With almost 400 sources of information, the article is backed up with sufficient secondary sources stemming from major news networks that can reliably detail the events of the pandemic. The sources corroborate one another as well as additional primary literature on the American impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the article also details a historical timeline on COVID-19, not all sources are particularly recent, but those sources are relevant towards the particular time periods they were used to describe. Many articles are by journalists stemming from a variety of backgrounds, and does include those from historically marginalized groups. Most links appear to work as well.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Organization evaluation
The article communicates information in simple language with few agrammatical sentences. The sections are clearly labeled and organized along timelines, responses, impacts, historical preparation, and statistical information. These are then divided into appropriate sub-topics, of which the responses category is the least organized. The subsection on medical supply shortages may be written more concisely by removing redundancies in wording (such as the description of PPEs). Additionally, additionally, some sub-group responses can be placed together. 2.1.1 Initial Response Outside the US and 2.3 Military both involve government agencies and may fit under the category 2.2 Federal, State, and Local Governments.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Images and media evaluation
Most images enhance the understanding of the topic by depicting particular events of the pandemic in the U.S. Most images contain concise captions that match the respective sections of the article. The charts and tables in the statistical information category of the article provide the best enhancement of topic understanding. Images are placed to the right of the article, unobtrusive and at an appropriate, appealing layout. All are cited, and appear to adhere to copyright regulations.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Talk page evaluation
Some major discussion I saw in the talk pages include polling on how to frame the severity of the pandemic (mortality rates vs total fatalities as a percentage of the world), whether new Wikipedia articles should be created to organize information, and which statistical analyses to include in the article. It is related to WikiProjects COVID-19 and is decently evaluated by Wikipedia users. The discussion in the talk page is much more focused on the technical aspects of the pandemic than what we've talked about in class and skims, while our class addresses much of the root cause of inequities seen in recent events.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Overall evaluation
The article is overall still in development but has well-made, quality material on the topics it currently addresses. It captures much of the critical information needed to understand American action taken to combat COVID-19, and has a comprehensive viewpoint on the national impacts of the virus. The article still lacks organizational consistency through the text, and can include topics that address more explanations on how the U.S. in particular become severely impacted by the pandemic. Overall, it is sufficiently written to provide informed understanding of the impact of the coronavirus on America.

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

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