User:LeuIleAsnAspSerAlaTyr/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: HIV Vaccine
 * I chose this article to evaluate because the concept of a vaccine and vaccine study have been important in the lives of the scientists I have been learning about. I was interested in what kind of information is available on Wikipedia about the feasibility of a vaccine and what research is currently taking place.

Lead

 * Guiding question


 * 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 lead begins with a concise description of a vaccine as well as definitions of vaccine categories, but fails to provide a summary of the main sections. The lead even covers a topic which is not at all covered in the remainder of the article, alternative medical treatment, including HAART. I think this topic is relevant to the article in the fact that it keeps it neutral because some people would assert that we are not in need of a vaccine to halt the epidemic, but the article asserts almost the opposite claim. I think if there was a place for ART information in the later article, it would leave the lead section more concise.

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 content in the article is certainly relevant to the topic at hand, and while a few people have raised this question in the Talk page, I am not sure that all of it is necessary to the overview provided on Wikipedia. I had trouble following some of the technical language and felt that it may be dangerously close to confusing readers on their own options for HIV treatment. Because of that I'm not sure they need to do as much heavy lifting explaining the phases of clinical trials and generic vaccine information, but this may be better suited in its own page. The article has a large amount of information in the topic, but is also flagged by Wikipedia for being out of date. It does not include the most recent research data.

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
I don't think persuasion is intentional or that one viewpoint is overpowering. However, I think the article more strongly asserts some claims about the possibility of a vaccine. For example, in a statement about classic vaccines, the article says "there are almost no recovered AIDS patients", when in fact there have been almost 2. This claim was also missing a citation. I think overall, the article overestimates the proximity to an operational vaccine, but this could also be clouded by my own viewpoint.

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
As mentioned before, there are a few places that are marked for the need for a citation as well as the information being out of date. The article does a good job of linking to other relevant Wikipedia pages and strongly shows the connection between topics in that way. Most of the links work, but the resources mainly come from 2000-2005.

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
The article is clear, but the overhaul of details and many complicated explanations made it slightly difficult to read. In reading the article, I did not find any glaring errors, which added to the ease of reading. I did find that the article was well organized in that the order of the sections made sense to me. The one thing that was surprising or that I felt was missing was the reason I was drawn to the article in the first place. I felt the connection to our class/my research was in the politics and social relevance of the vaccine. Who was studying it and why? I thought that the slight conflict between researchers' opinions on the priority of a vaccine and the social relevance was not clearly represented.

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
There is only one image, which is well captioned, but very specific to one section of the article. The size also makes the text hard to read without zooming in or opening the image itself. The image is cited clearly and labelled with the appropriate copyright information.

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 is a part of multiple Wikiprojects and the talk page shows the article has grown greatly since its start. The projects include AIDS, medicine, pharmacology, and viruses. Both Wikiprojects AIDS and medicine rank it solely as start class, while viruses rates it with a C. The talk page seems to be well used by these editors, with the majority of comments being helpful and respectful. The uses fall either into editors suggesting their own additions, citing a source or an editor asking for help/suggesting an edit on the existing page, both of which seem to follow Wikipedia guidelines.

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
This article has clearly been worked on my a vast number of editors, but it certainly needs an update. The article is very strong for establishing scientific basis for a vaccine, but in reading it, I feel that it would fail to reach readers without significant background knowledge. I also feel that part of the significance of a vaccine are the social and political effects of vaccine research and development. While it may be difficult to write neutrally, I think that the article does not show the balance between HIV as a treatable disease versus the desire to eradicate with a vaccine. I think the article is past its start and is a string foundation, but could use some refining work.