User:Historynerdd22/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Volstead Act

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I am interested In learning more about the prohibition and 1920s era. I noticed that this article was listed under a start class which means there is more room for improvement in making edits. The volstead act is an important aspect to understanding the origins or the prohibition era.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:

The Prohibition Act which is formally known as the Volstead Act designed to carry out the 18th amendment. This was established to place a ban on alcoholic drinks. The 18th amendment put a ban on production, sale and transporting of alcoholic beverages. When the Volstead act came into affect on January 17th, the bootlegger domino effect came into play. Big criminals such as Al Capone and Omaha's Tom Dennison became rich and were able to sustain lucrative bootlegging businesses. Section 29 of the Volstead act allowed for two hundred gallons of "intoxicating" fruit juice to be made from home. The law created many exceptions, for example physicians were allowed to prescribe whiskey to their patients. Prohibition eventually lost its support with society ignoring the law and the increase in organized crime. On December 5, 1933, Utah ratified the twenty first amendment which repealed the 18th amendment.

Content:

In this article there is quite a bit of content that is missing that could be useful in explaining the volstead act. This would include more information on organized crime and gangsters. The information in this section seems to be moved around in such a way that it is confusing for the reader. The paragraphs are not strong enough and are lacking crucial key aspects for the reader to understand what role gangsters played in the prohibition era.

Tone and Balance:

The article seems to be written from a neutral point of view, meaning that the information provided is merely just information for the reader to understand the prohibition era better. There are no opinions presented in this article that would make the reader assume they should view one side over the other. This article could use some work on providing minority and fringe viewpoints as well as a little bit more work presenting the viewpoints. For example, this article could use more work on presenting the viewpoint of those who opposed the prohibition as well as those who were for the prohibition. It would give the reader a sense of conflict that was happening during this time and why the organized crime became a crucial part of this time period.

Sources and References:

This article on the Volstead Act is in need of an update of the sources. Most of the links provided in the paragraphs are direct links used from other wikipedia sites. The editors of this article may have used those direct links and resources from those wikipedia pages, but it was not clearly stated if they did. This article could use some new and updates sources such as books, articles, newspaper Ads from that time as well as primary and secondary sourced to strengthen the reliability of this source. There is several other excellent sources such as peer reviewed articles and even scholarly journals that one can use to edit this information. It will allow readers to get the best information in order to check if this information is reliable in using for their own papers or research.

Organization and Quality:

Overall this article is rich in information, but can use a bit of a clean up in terms of organization. In the section called enforcement and impact, the paragraph tends to jump around from one end to another. To ensure readers don't get confused, this area needs to be cleaned up and re written. More information is needed in this section to explain the impact in further detail and some paragraphs need to be moved around or removed al together. This article does a great job in breaking down the main points in bolded headings, but each area is in need of a major clean up. Some of the sentences need to be reworded in a more scholarly format as well as some of the information provided is extra filler that can be taken out al together.

Images and Media:

This article in particular includes no images or media to help elaborate or explain the Volstead Act. This article would be a perfect place to include images such as Al Capone, organized crimes and other images that set the stage for the reader of this crucial time period.

Talk Page Discussion:

This page solely asks questions on elaborating the content and information already in the article. Some on this talk page place emphasis on changes that were made that were not stated in the article itself and areas where people have suggested removing passages such as how they included Utah's restriction on beer. A lot of this talk page is suggesting to the article that areas be removed and how to better improve this article for future readers such as including better sources or adding more information. The talk page seems to solely focuses on areas where this article can improve its content such as removing information in another section because it contradicts another area or suggesting to add an area on what happened to the violators after the repeal.

Overall Impressions:

This article is labeled as a low importance start class. There is plenty of room for improvement as it seems to be a bit underdeveloped. There is sections that can be elaborated on and the sources need to be reviewed in order to provide reliable up to date sources. The overall word choice and sentence structures need to be reviewed and strengthen for new readers of the article. Some paragraphs need to be changed, re worded or removed al together and replaced with information that best fits the bolded heading. Another factor that could strengthen this article is the inclusion of images that would allow readers to picture the time period.