User:Jen35n/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.


 * Ellen Prince: Ellen Prince
 * I chose to evaluate this article because of two reasons. One, I have never heard of her before, and two, because I am interested in the women who have gone forth in the field of linguistics (and its sub-fields) before me.

Lead

 * Guiding question


 * 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?

==== The introductory sentence clearly states the dates of Ellen Prince's birth and death and states that she is a linguist. However, it gets distracting from this point as the author chose to include the anecdote that she could only celebrate 16 birthdays since she was born on Leap Year, which is also, while cited, a paraphrase from the article of her obituary by George Ward found in Language, volume 87, issue number 4, rather than in their own words. It detracts from her biography information that follows and is unnecessary. Additionally, the line that states that Prince was a "pioneer in the field of linguistics" is another plagiarism, without citation from the obituary found in Language Log, written by Mark Liberman, as well as the information about typology of information statuses in discourse. This is further confused by the citation at the end of this sentence being incorrectly cited under Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. Almost all information in this lead is paraphrase from the two obituaries by Ward and Liberman rather than written in their own words. Since there are no further sections other than a few of her notable publication works and then the reference section, the lead mentions her academic career and then moves on to gloss over what her work in the field of linguistics, primarily in the area of pragmatics. In this aspect, the lead is concise in its information. ====

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 is no content here. Other than the lead, everything about Ellen Prince is missing. This article should include details about her early life, more details about her study in Yiddish, examples of her work, even include some idea of the twenty dissertations that she supervised.

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
This article is relatively neutral, simply giving information about Prince's history and the work that she has done in the field of linguistics without going into detail. It succinctly summarizes the work that Prince did in her lifetime, but to little degree. The information is clumped up and all is underrepresented. Further information and detail needs to be given.

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
These sources are disorganized. Some of the information comes from named references but incorrectly. For example, the information for Prince's work with linguistic discourse is incorrectly cited under references 4 and 5, which are merely lists of her publications, not the works themselves, sort of like results from a google page. While the links work, one would have to go through each of the sources provided by Semantic Scholar or Google Scholar in order to obtain direct information. Others, while reliable, are merely lists of names who either served as presidents of their society or are members thereof.

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
There simply is no structure as there are no sections that reflect the points made in the lead. The information, little as it is, is clear, easy to read and concise without spelling or grammatical errors.

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
There are no images with this article.

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
The conversations mostly pertain to asking about deeper information about Prince;s work. This article seems to simply touch on the surface, merely naming the fields, and some of the topics, that she worked on. This page is part of two WikiProjects, WikiProject Women and WikiProject Biography.

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
This is a start-class quality page. It gives the highlights of the history and work of Prince during her lifetime. It can be improved by detail, creating sections that pertain to each of the aspects of Prince's life, for example, college life, pragmatic work, her work with Yiddish, etc. This article is incomplete, very underdeveloped and greatly plagiarized via paraphrase of the two cited obituaries.

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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