User:Jz01836/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Gwen ferch Ellis

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
'Gwen ferch Ellis' was one of the tabs I had open when doing a preliminary lookover of information already available on Wikipedia related to witchcraft in Wales. This article is on the first (recorded) woman to have been tried and executed for using witchcraft with malicious intent in Wales. My first impression of the article is that while it does have more than just a couple paragraphs of information (and interestingly more information in the English article than the Welsh one), the information seems a little bit dry and like there was little to no analysis on the significance of Gwen's trial. The article definitely feels incomplete and lacking in depth.

Evaluate the article
Firstly, the article is not necessarily written poorly; it is easy enough to understand, and the information is presented in a very neutral and unbiased tone. The leading section is concise and provides a decent enough overview of the content of the article. That being said, the article itself has a problem with its content. The information presented is a little more like a collection of facts, but there is a lack of inclusion of analyses from secondary sources. This may be due to a lack of secondary sources that evaluate the significance of Gwen ferch Ellis's trial and execution. However, the references in the article are primarily from one source, indicating that this article's author was not able to (for whatever reason) create an effective integration of information from many sources.

Depending on the extent of research and writing out there about Gwen ferch Ellis, this article may actually be a decent start to a good article, but as it is, it needs work. If possible, information from more sources that discuss the importance and significance of the trial and execution should be included. Some addition of media, if even possible, would be great as well.

Another interesting thing to note is that the English article says Gwen ferch Ellis is a spinner and/or linen-maker, but the Welsh article calls her a poet. Both may be true, but this is a difference in included information that stands out a little. The source for calling her a poet comes from a 2020 collection of modern poetry, where an author compares Gwen ferch Ellis to a poet and calls her a witch or an enchantress, as if to say that poetry should be enchanting. This author's literary choice is not solid information to call a historical figure a poet. This information alone makes me believe that the articles need to be checked over for accuracy, as it seems that their edit histories are short, and the talk pages completely nonexistent.