User:Jillianmm31/Evaluate an Article

User:Jillianmm31/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Domestic violence in the United States

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose a Wikipedia article on “Domestic Violence in the United States” because I am interested in how guns play into domestic violence as a criminology graduate student. I thought evaluating an article on domestic violence in the context of the US would be a good start to studying gender and public policy on this issue. Based on my research on gun violence in our country, I know that gun violence is prevalent in domestic violence. Therefore, I think it is imperative before bringing gun violence into the equation to understand domestic violence in the United States. My preliminary impression of the article was that it gives an extensive and detailed overview of what constitutes domestic violence (i.e., its definitions), the different forms of domestic violence, incidences related to gender in abuse, socio-economic impacts (i.e., its history), laws, state due diligence, support organizations, and reduction programs. This is a very good thing, especially when this issue has many important parts to consider. However, there could be some improvement in the article because most of the statistics and facts that they used are not recent. When talking about domestic violence in the United States, the issue is developing in terms of the law and public policy. Therefore, there should be recent information consistently added to this Wikipedia article from more than two years ago to keep it up to date for the public who use Wikipedia as their first source to learn about the issue.

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.)

For the most part, “Domestic Violence in the United States” gives an entire picture of the issue, such as providing a thorough lead section with its related definitions and an outline for the rest of the article’s sections. Nevertheless, there are some improvements needed for this Wikipedia article. Here are my thoughts and suggestions:

·      I am not sure there needs to be a section on “Globally” on “Domestic Violence in the United States” because we are talking about the United States specifically, not the rest of the world. We do not need to know how the Secretary-General of the UN views the issue, especially a report from 2006.

·      As shown with this previous report from the early 2000s, a lot of the information in the article comes from more than ten years ago. To understand the issue today, the facts need to be revised in a timely manner. There needs to be historical and recent examples included. For example:

o   In the “Gender aspects of abuse” section, it states that: “In the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 1995 women reported a six times greater rate of intimate partner violence than men.[31][32].”  It is important to know the previous information on the gender rate of domestic violence in the United States, but what about the rate report of intimate partner violence in 2023? They did provide statistics on the number of women murdered per day by their intimate partner in a study from 2019. However, there must be more recent information available in the last two to three years at this point.

·      Throughout the article, there is a mention of how men experience domestic violence in the United States as well, such as how men use community activism in the “Reduction programs” section. Nonetheless, they are still portrayed as a secondary group to domestic violence for the most part in the piece. I think there should be more of a discussion of men abused by women or their partners to create a more equal dialogue on the issue.

·      Most of the article provides a neutral tone, but there is one insistence that I noticed that might show some partiality:

o   “Up to 10 to 20% children in the United States witness abuse of a parent or caregiver annually. As a result, they are more likely to experience neglect or abuse, less likely to succeed at school, have poor problem-solving skills, subject to higher incidence of emotional and behavioral problems, and more likely to tolerate violence in their adult relationships. Complicating this already bleak picture, parental psychopathology in the wake of domestic violence can further compromise the quality of parenting, and in turn increase the risk for the child's developing emotional and behavioral difficulties if mental health care is not sought.

§  The language of “Complicating this already bleak picture” gives off the assumption that this percentage is negative. I am not saying that negativity cannot be shown or inferred, but this flowery language seems more like the writer of this information’s opinion than an objective statement.

·      Throughout “Domestic Violence in the United States,” the references and citations are good with all (or most of the information) provided. However, in the “References” section, some of the sources are missing the journal where the material can be acquired (as noted with:  : Cite journal requires |journal= ( help)).

·      In addition, the links will take you to the sources or PDFs to review the material they provided for accuracy. The sources are reliable, factual, and come from different sources. When clicking the link, you are redirected to HeinOnline, state codes, and national newspapers, like The New York Times.

o   Nevertheless, most of the sources only go to the late 2010s. It makes me wonder if there is more recent information that could have been found to update the article.

·      On the “Domestic Violence in the United States,” the images and charts are related to the topic and well-captioned.

·      In terms of organization, I did not agree that the “History” of “Domestic Violence in the United States” was only a subsection and not its own section. I think it is imperative, but I may be biased since I did study the history of crime in my first master’s program.

·      The “Laws” section is missing a citation. Here is the issue:

o   “Victims of domestic violence are offered legal remedies that are both civil and criminal in nature. Criminal law remedies include the criminal prosecution of the offender, and possible restraints on the offender's behavior during periods of pretrial release or as part of a criminal sentence. Civil law remedies include the possibility of obtaining a protection order. These remedies are not exclusive, meaning that a victim may seek both the criminal prosecution of the offender and also petition for civil remedies.”

§  At the end of every paragraph, there should be some reference to support the information on Wikipedia, as shown in the training modules.

·      Lastly, I noticed there were direct quotes written in the article. From what I remember learning in the training, you should not include anything with direct words from another source or quotes. This example shows both elements:

o   “In 2011, Rashida Manjoo, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, urged the United States to "[e]xplore more uniform remedies for victims of domestic violence," "[r]e-evaluate existing mechanisms at federal, state, local, and tribal levels for protecting victims and punishing offenders," "[e]stablish meaningful standards for enforcement of protection orders," and "[i]nitiate more public education campaigns."”

§  Hence, examples of this would need to not have exact phrases, even with the paraphrasing, must be revised.

This article is rated as a B-class criterion, which is shown in my evaluation of it. Furthermore, it is somewhat associated with law, gender studies, women’s history, and United States WikiProjects. In terms of the “Talk” tab, most of the conversations relate to the issues that I pointed out, such as gender representation disparities and statistics being more relevant. For example, this comment highlights the gender disparities in domestic violence in the United States: “Why aren't there any women directed at men statistics?” It was very interesting to peruse all the comments on what people think should be edited in this Wikipedia article.