User:Historian1109/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Ethel Kennedy

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because I have always been interested in the Kennedy family and their influence on American society. Additionally, I have prior knowledge on Ethel Kennedy and her life following the death of her husband Robert Kennedy. Ethel Kennedy is an important figure because she is a human rights advocate who still continues to have a small influence on the country today. My preliminary impression of this article was that although it was short and could use some improvement.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

This article's opening sentence is very short and needs to be expanded upon. The opening sentence simply states "Ethel Kennedy is an American human rights advocate," which does not represent the entirety of the article. The rest of the lead does provide a brief description into the article's major sections and only presents information that is present within the article. The lead is concise and just points out the main points of Ethel Kennedy's life, which will be discussed more in detail as the article progresses.

Content

The article's content is relevant to the topic and covers Ethel Kennedy's life in eras. For example, it begins with her early life, then marriage, and so on. This article is not kept up to date. In the past few years, Robert Kennedy's assassin was released from jail, and Ethel Kennedy spoke out about her disappointment for this decision, this is not mentioned in the article. This article does briefly deal with equity gaps, but from Ethel Kennedy's social justice platform.

Tone and Balance

This article's tone is neutral and there does not appear to be any noticeable bias. The article does focus heavily on Ethel's marriage and family life, and lacks in Human Rights and Legacy and Awards. Because the tone is neutral, there does not seem to be an attempt to persuade readers.

Sources and References

All the facts throughout the article are backed by sources, but the reliability of these sources are questionable. Because Ethel has lived a long life, there are older and current sources. The sources could be improved by finding peer reviewed articles. Many of the sources I saw were from random websites, which are not reliable.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is well organized, clear, concise, and easy to read, and there were no noticeable spelling or grammatical errors. The article daily uses a format of periodization with Ethel Kennedy's life, which makes it easy to read.

Talk Page Discussion

One of the main complaints on the talk page is the images used in the article. Additionally, there has been some back and forth on Ethel's Catholic background and what should and should not be included to remain neutral. This article is part of numerous WikiProjects and is rated C-class in all of them.

Overall Impressions

Overall, the article is organized very well, but could use more information, especially on her life following the death of her husband. Additionally, the images used in the article could be improved, or more could be added to provide a better glimpse into who she is. In my opinion, the article is well-developed, but still has areas of improvement.