User:Hillmap/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: (link) Answer: Half-Breed Tract (Half-Breed Tract)
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. Answer: I am writing my dissertation on the Iowa Half-Breed Tract, so it seemed like a logical choice.

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 lead is concise and does lay out the major sections of the article, but it is too brief and includes some out-of-place information. Only two sentences long, the lead could probably benefit from a bit more detail. What happened to the half-breed tracts? Did they successfully carry out their purpose? These are questions that should be addressed right away in the lead. All the major sections of the article are mentioned, but they are not described in any detail. It just says there were tracts in Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa. The lead mentions a tract in Kansas even though "half-breed land" in Kansas was allotted to individuals and was not really a half-breed tract.

If I were editing, I would add some more detail, remove the reference to a tract in Kansas, and answer some basic questions about the tract such as how long they lasted and why they dissolved.

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?

Content evaluation
The article's content is relevant, but somewhat lacking. Writing this article must have been difficult because there are not many secondary sources on the tracts, but the descriptions of the tracts are all quite short. None of the sections describe what caused the tracts' demise or why they didn't work in any detail. I think anyone with enough interest to search the half-breed tracts would probably be curious to know why they don't exist anymore. That's often one of the first questions people ask me when I tell them I am writing about half-breed tracts. If I rewrote the article, I would make sure to include several sentences about how and why each of the tracts ceased to exist.

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 balanced and neutral. It certainly doesn't reflect any major bias. It doesn't reflect the mixed-race people's side of the story in any detail, but, given the lack of secondary sources on the topic, I can't fault the article's authors for this omission.

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?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
The authors of this article have pulled on a small number of well-reputed sources. As I mentioned before, there aren't many good secondary sources on this topic, so I think their research, as meager as it might have been, does reflect the available scholarship. They could have looked at a master's thesis written by an Iowa State student as well as a few old Annals of Iowa articles, but their research is probably adequate for such an understudied topic. This was probably written a while ago because several of the links don't work

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
It's fairly well-written but could use some editing. The main topics in the article should probably have been organized chronologically. For instance, the Kansas half-breed lands were assigned in 1825, but it appears in the article after the Nemahaw Half-Breed Tract that was created in 1830.

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
The authors of this article actually found great pictures. I've had trouble finding good pictures for my work. Many old cartographic images are faded, etc, but they found a couple of great color maps.

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
There are a few brief conversations on the "talk page." Some people have suggested more description of kinship ties or more detailed articles about each tract, ideas that I think are really exciting. I also enjoyed a couple of posts from readers who had never heard of half-breed tracts before and were really fascinated.

This article has a c-level rating and is of interest to several WikiProjects such as the Indigenous Peoples of North America WikiProject and the Iowa and Minnesota WikiProjects.

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
I am impressed the Wikipedia even has an article on half-breed tracts. So little has been written about them that the very existence of the page is impressive. It effectively provides quite a bit of basic information about the tracts such as where they were and when they were created. The page needs some work, though. It contains little detail and fails to explain why the tracts no longer exist and what went wrong. It also should pull on a wider array of sources. Even without delving into the primary sources, there are lots of secondary sources on the Iowa Tract that can be used to create a much better article. As of now, I would say this article is underdeveloped. Hopefully, I can help correct this.

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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 * Link to feedback:Talk:Half-Breed Tract