User:Kayleegmorgan/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Community service

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This article related to a lot of the religious-based community service and volunteering that I am both involved with, and doing a research project for. It is incredibly important to define correctly and provide a more nuanced understanding of different ways community service can be performed. Linking it to both volunteering and the more overarching idea of partnership seems important as well.

Evaluate the article
The lead section has a great introductory sentence that defines community service, and it also does a good job differentiating between community service and volunteering. However, the lead section does not introduce what is going to be discussed in the rest of the article very well. It doesn't set the tone very well for what the reader should expect for the rest of the article, and as a result, the article doesn't have clear direction throughout. The overall content feels relevant and up to date but is not exhaustive in terms of community service examples. It overemphasizes community service for institutions and colleges, while doing a lesser job touching on court ordered service as well as religiously-affiliated service. If there was a reason behind this emphasis that was stated (ie, a higher percentage of community service is done by colleges rather than religious communities) this discrepancy would be accounted for. However, it seems the difference is more arbitrary rather than intentional. The source list is extensive, as well as the "see also" section listing related topics. There are three images in the article which have mediocre captions. These captions could be improved by directly tying the image to types of community service mentioned in the article (ex: court ordered, sorority/fraternity, etc.) In terms of the talk page, it has some extremely irrelevant comments. However, it does contain an important anecdote highlighting the intersection between community service and volunteering, indicating it is not necessarily a binary cut. Overall the article has a lot of great information but it feels like it could have been organized more cohesively (starting with a better introduction that casts vision for the article) as well as more intention behind the religious and personal benefits section. A more nuanced conclusion could also be added to the "choosing the right strategy" section.