User:Jc181maple/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: William H. Welch
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.

William Henry Welch played a crucial role in both founding and expanding the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Even more than that, I was familiar with the name years ago when I looked into the history of the 1918 Influenza outbreak and saw that he played a crucial role in organizing an early response despite bureaucratic roadblock.

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's introductory sentence clearly describes who Welch was but could use some work as it reads as a list of his various job titles with little insight into his main accomplishments. The rest of the lead largely focuses on the section of Welch's life at Johns Hopkins and is, in my opinion, too light in introducing the other sections. I would say that the lead could be made more concise with some of the more granular details moved down to the main body of the article or omitted entirely. It reads somewhat choppily; I would recommend varying sentence openers as a quick fix.

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 to the topic with all information, in one way or another, being tied back to Welch. It can be said that the content is up-to-date but the article is definitely lacking in content talking about the other portions of Welch's life. The lion's share of the article is dedicated to Welch's work as Dean of Johns Hopkins Medical school but only gives a passing mention to the variety of other positions he held (such as being president of the American Medical Position). Moreover, large parts of his life are not mentioned that I believe should have been included such as his work on influenza (which nearly killed him) before being involved with Johns Hopkins.

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 mostly neutral if not leaning slightly praiseworthy in emphasizing his many career achievements. In terms of overrepresented viewpoints, as stated before, the article focuses heavily on his medical accomplishments in academia and at Johns Hopkins and doesn't make much reference to his earlier work or his personal life (both of which are worth looking into). However, it doesn't seem as if the article is meant to persuade anyone one way or another.

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 number of sources in the writing of the article is on the lower end and could use some more diversity. Moreoever, three of the ten links no longer work. Nonetheless, most of the facts in the article appear to be backed by reliable sources that are as current as can be expected for a historical figure.

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 doesn't have any grammatical errors that impede readability. However, much of the article reads as a list, quickly mentioning titles and names without explaining their significance in the context of Welch's life. Moreover, as stated before, much of the article is in the section labeled "later career at Johns Hopkins" leading me to think that the article should have been broken down better to reflect the distribution of content in the article.

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 article includes images that are relevant to the topic, are well-captioned, laid out well, and are all either government publications or in the public domain.

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
No conversations have been active since 2015 when another Johns Hopkins class was assigned to write this article. This article is rated C-class, mid-importance in the Johns Hopkins University WikiProject.

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's status is well researched. The article's strength is definitely when it is talking about Welch's life and accomplishments at Johs Hopkins medical school. However, I feel that the biggest draw back of the article is a lack of research in the other parts of Welch's life that deserve discussion in the article. In total, I would say the article is well developed with reference to Johns Hopkins but needs more work in the other sections.

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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