User:Laurenoneil82/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: 2019 Virginia political crisis
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I have chosen this article because I think that this particular issue is extremely multifaceted and therefore this Wikipedia page must have a proper balance of information. Also, I plan to major in Public Policy and like to stay up to date on local politics.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? Yes
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? No
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? Very concise, well done.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? Yes, I think that it is. The background paragraph doesn't seem totally needed to me, however it does provide a backdrop for the scandals.
 * Is the content up-to-date? I thought that the content was up to date, however the banner at the top states that it needs to be update, so I'm assuming that once I do some research I will realize that this isn't all of the available information we have now.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? I think that some of the content doesn't belong, such as the content about Northam's stance on abortion. Though this shows the contentiousness of state politics at this time, it isn't totally relevant to the article as a whole. Additionally, I don't think that the "Additional information" section is needed.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? I believe it is mostly neutral, thought the extra information mentioned above does imply some sort of political bias because there is no reason to implicate Northam's abortion comments or the Tommy Norment aspect of it.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? No
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? No
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? No

==== Tone and balance evaluation: Overall the tone and balance of this article is really well done, balancing each scandal (Although obviously more room is spent on Northam's given that more information is known about it) and their implications/repercussions nicely. 9/10 ====

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? Yes
 * Are the sources current? Yes
 * Check a few links. Do they work? Yes

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? Yes
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? Not that I saw
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? Yes, although I'm not sure the pictures at the top of each public servant add much, but that's also probably my own bias because I knew what the Governor, Lt. Governor, and AG looked like prior to reading this article.
 * Are images well-captioned? Yes
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? yes
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? Yes

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? There were three major conversations going on regarding this article: one about the potential inclusion of a timeline, one about the background section and if it's needed, and one about the use of terms such as 'racist' and 'racism'.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? Yes, it is a part of many WikiProjects. These are WikiProject Virginia, WikiProject United States, WikiProject African Diaspora, WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality, and WikiProject Feminism. In all of these, the article is rated "Start-class, low importance" or "Start-class, Mid-importance".
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? We haven't fully talked about this topic in class, but one thing I noted about how the talk page users differ from my expectations from class is that the comments are all very thorough and substantive, and I expected more comments. Maybe it's because this article isn't complete, but there aren't very many comments on it and the comments that exist in the talk page tend to be very long.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? The article's overall status is it "needs to be updated." Meaning that it's still incomplete and needs to be updated to reflect our current information.
 * What are the article's strengths? The strengths are the organization and the balance.
 * How can the article be improved? The article needs to be more comprehensive in terms of the defenses and statements made by the officials and what actually ended up happening ie did they resign or not.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? I think it's underdeveloped. The information and sections it does have are good, however it needs to cover new developments from summer 2019 to the present.

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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