User:KStanfo/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: Digital rhetoric
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * This article was required for class and closely aligns with the topics we will be discussing in class.

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 opening sentence is brief but clear. The lead hints towards aspects of the article's major sections, such as the difference between rhetoric and digital rhetoric presumably to be elaborated on in the "History" section, the uses of digital rhetoric, and the meanings of digital rhetoric. The lead as a whole is concise and not overly detailed.

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, as all sections pertain to the meaning, uses, history, or concepts of digital rhetoric. The content is evidently up-to-date, alluding to information from as late as 2018. While digital rhetoric is clearly a broad topic and thus there is surely information to be found about it that is not present in the article, I am left with no lingering questions about what digital rhetoric is or its applications. No content strikes me as explicitly not belonging in the article.

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 largely neutral, with any evaluative claims written passively as opinions of figures noted within the article as opposed to stances proposed by the article itself. Viewpoints appear to be balanced for the most part; whenever the article mentions a particular viewpoint, it often notes alternative viewpoints. However, while the article steers clear of value claims, the "Politics" section seems highly biased towards the perspective of a reader from the United States, with Barack Obama being introduced as "President Obama" without a full name, any links to his page, or any information indicating that he is the United States president, assuming readers are already familiar with that information. Likewise, most of the examples presented in this article are written about United States politicians in spite of the fact that politics is a worldwide concept; the only other country noted with regard to digital rhetoric in politics is a brief citation about Germany.

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
Sources are extensive and all of the links I checked worked. Sources date to as late as 2018 and no earlier than 1991, making the information fairly current and relevant to the modern day. However, I was able to find points at which facts or information should have been cited but was not. For example, when the article states, "In some ways appropriation is a tool that can be used for the reapplication of outdated ideas to make them better. In other ways appropriation is seen as a threat to creative and cultural identities. Social media receives the bulk of this scrutiny due to the lack of education of its users", none of these facts are cited despite the fact that we cannot know for sure that people see appropriation as a threat to creative identities - who believes this? Is there research showing people believe this? The concepts section of the article in general lacks many citations where they should logically be present.

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
Portions of the article are concisely-written, while other parts are redundant. In particular, the "Politics" section of the article stands out as particularly redundant; ideas of a very similar nature are restated at numerous points. For example, sentences like "The use of social media helps both candidates and constituents connect with one another", "For candidates, Facebook brings publicity and enables them to communicate effectively to the voters", and "Social media provides a mechanism for candidates to directly engage with society and potential voters" all seem to state roughly the same point in different ways. Sentences like "This use of social media has become a large asset for all political candidates and is currently utilized by all" are similarly redundant in addition to claiming information that cannot be true (surely not all political candidates across the world use social media). There are grammatical errors to be found as well, such as a lack of closing quotes in the "Appropriation" section. Likewise, the sentence "Especially political communication, fostering discussions and connecting communities as it reaches a significant number of people" in "Politics" is a fragment because it has no subject. In the following sentence, the contraction "that's" is used, which while not grammatically incorrect clashes with the largely formal tone of the rest of 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 is incredibly lacking in images and media and contains only a single image at the top of the page. The caption is brief and does not relate the image to the article itself, with the relation needing to be inferred by readers. There is no evidence that the image violates Wikipedia's copyright violations.

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 article's talk page contains discussions about the article's name, which was evidently once "eRhetoric" and was renamed to be more appropriate. A few other entries include sections that had been removed from the article, one for its lack of citations and another for containing information that did not add anything to the article. The article is rated "start-class" by all of the projects involved with it, indicating that, while it is not so incomplete as to be considered a stub, it is lacking in content and still in development.

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 is detailed and contains more information about digital rhetoric than I ever could have known when I first started reading it. Its strengths stem from its organization, which breaks the article down into clear sections, as well as its (albeit not optimal amount of) cited information, which provides a wide variety of knowledge about the topic at hand. Still, the article contains numerous grammatical errors and information that has not been cited. The article is well-developed but not complete, and is in great need of additional research to back up the many claims which have not been cited.

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

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: Talk:Digital rhetoric