User:Historyfan323/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: Allan Pinkerton
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I am very interested in the American Civil War (and am studying the period as part of my master's thesis). I am somewhat familiar with the topic of the article, so I thought it would be an interesting article to evaluate.

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 does have a short, to-the-point intro sentence describing the topic. However, that sentence is the only one in the lead. There is no other information in the lead explaining the major sections of the article. In fact, the single sentence actually leaves out a couple of the sections in the article (eg. any reference to his Civil War service or what he did after the war.

The lead is quite concise, but more "too concise" than concise enough. It is definitely not overly detailed.

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
There's nothing in the article that is irrelevant to the topic. There is a warning at the top of the "In popular culture" section that the section has no citations and it does come across as nothing more than a list of references to Pinkerton in popular culture. I do not think the section is totally irrelevant, but I do agree with the warning that it needs an explanation of the subject's (Pinkerton's) impact on popular culture.

There are a couple of pieces of content missing (in the way of information). There is a mention of Pinkerton serving as the head of the Union Intelligence Service, but no explanation whatsoever of how he got there. In addition, the section titled "After the war" feels like it is missing some examples of things--eg. how exactly he opposed labor unions.

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 sounds pretty neutral. Where there are disagreements in source material--including how he died--the article lists all of the possibilities and mentions that there is some controversy, but does not take a side one way or another. There is not really much in the way of an imbalance of viewpoints where there are multiple viewpoints. The article also isn't particularly persuasive. There is no indication of an opinion on Pinkerton himself or his legacy, other than that he had a legacy.

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
There are a couple of places in the article where footnotes are needed, including the paragraph discussing the formation of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and how Pinkerton came into contact with McClellan and Lincoln and partway through the American Civil War section. In addition, there are no citations whatsoever in the "In popular culture" section, and there should be one in the "Legacy" section where the use of Pinkerton's name as a slang term is mentioned.

In terms of sources, there are several academic-sounding sources in the references section. However, there are also a few less-academic sounding sources. There are a variety of sources though, so the sourcework isn't problematic in that respect. As someone who has spent a lot of time researching the American Civil War in general, I think there are probably more sources available on the subject, given the massive amount of writing on almost every aspect of the Civil War.

The most recent sources listed in the references and bibliography are from 2015, and the oldest source listed dates from 1998. In looking up Allan Pinkerton on the OU library's website, I found a couple of articles/books from 2018 that might be worth using to fill in some gaps in the article, but the sources for the article as is are not massively out of date.

All of the links technically work, but a couple lead to sites which require some kind of access/login, which I found somewhat annoying. The links within the article to other articles all seem to work/link to the articles that they are meant to link to.

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
Overall, the article has a couple of issues, but is otherwise well-written. There are a couple of spots where it is relatively easy to skip over information that's fairly important (but this is more an organizational matter). There are a couple of minor grammatical hiccups/word usage issues, but they do not really disrupt the article itself. There is one random sentence in the "Early life, career and immigration" section about Pinkerton's religious upbringing that doesn't really feel like it belongs anywhere--it's just sitting there on its own.

The article is well-organized for the most part. There are a couple of cases where pieces of sections could use their own sub-sections, namely the founding of his detective agency, since later sections refer to the organization's importance and legacy. Other than that, the information appears to be in the right sections, with no information in a section that obviously belongs in another section.

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 included images serve to give the reader an idea of what Pinkerton looked like and some photographic proof of his Civil War era activities; there is also a photo of his grave. The photos themselves are all accurately captioned. They were all in the public domain.

They way the photos were laid out was interesting: not clumped together all in one place, and placed near the relevant sections where applicable.

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
One of the biggest ongoing conversations seems to be surrounding Pinkerton's involvement in the American Civil War. There seems to be quite a bit of questioning about what exactly his official role/position (if he had one) was at the time. The problem seems to be a lot of contradicting information that the editors on the talk page are trying to figure out. There is also a remark about the nature of what Pinkerton did during the Civil War and how his role/involvement appears to be overexaggerated (perhaps on Pinkerton's part)--this comes as no surprise to me (on account of some previous research where I ran into Pinkerton). I do wonder how that would be integrated into the article though and not move slightly away from neutrality. In addition, there were a couple of threads dealing with some citation issues and one factual matter regarding Pinkerton's agency not actually being the first of its kind either in the world or the United States.

The article is part of several WikiProjects, including Politics of the United Kingdom, Illinois, Chicago, Biography/Military, United States/American Old West, Organized Labor, and Military History. All of the WikiProjects rate it as C-class (with a couple also rating it as low-importance).

In terms of how I've seen Pinkerton discussed before, his relation to Union military blunders (under McClellan), the existence of the detective agency, and the agency's role in postwar labor unrest comprise the bulk of what I am familiar with. There are several pieces of the article that I am much less familiar with and have not come across before (at least, that I remember).

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
Overall, I think the article is fairly decent--I do very much agree with the WikiProjects' rating it as a C-class article. The article does a decent job of covering Pinkerton outside of where he was more famous/infamous. It is also fairly well-organized and avoids any obvious biases one way or another. However, I do agree with the comments on the talk page regarding the need to sort out what exactly he was up to during the Civil War and what position(s) he may or may not have held. I also think there could be more elaboration on his relationship to McClellan during the war, especially given what one of the editors said about his role in McClellan's problems during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. I also think the section about the formation of the detective agency, given its importance to Pinkerton's legacy, should at least have its own sub-section within its current section.

In terms of development, I would put it somewhere in between well-developed and under/poorly-developed. I would say it is moderately developed: the important information about Pinkerton is there in a format that makes sense, but there are some points that could use some filling out. I would rate it as a C-class article (like the related WikiProjects did).

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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