User:Lsobrils/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Panetti v. Quarterman

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I am interested in creating an article focused on key aspects that determine competence to be executed and to participate in and waive appeals. Panetti v. Quarterman is an important supreme court decision in determining how competence is defined. This judicial decision matters because it extended the meaning of competence first proposed under Ford. It affirms the idea that people can not be executed if they do not understand the reason for their execution. After a preliminary view of the article my impressions were that the article was small compared to the larger real world implications of this decision. However, despite its brevity it appears to hit the key points necessary to understand the decision and its implications.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The lead section is concise, clear, and does not include extraneous information. There is some indication of future sections though it could be more clearly defined by stating the sections more clearly.

The article's content is relevant and up-to-date. However, I feel as though more specific information summarizing the court decision in laymen's terms and outlining the areas that helped the court make this determination before diving into them. Additionally, if each section in "Opinion of the Court" could have a sentence at the end explaining exactly how each determination effected the supreme court decision it would be helpful. This article does address a topic related to historically underrepresented population of the mentally ill and specifically addresses how historically mentally ill people have been mistreated and poor represented in the courts.

The sources used are reliable, current, and have working link. However, using law reviews and other peer-reviewed articles would be of benefit to this article and help to ensure that diverse voices were represented. Additionally, its references lack formatting and are bare URLs which are uninformative and subject to link rot. Additionally, there is no in-line citations which means that the article lacks precise location of where references are used. The addition of these could be of great help to those trying to research this topic.

The article, mostly, has a neutral ton throughout. However, a couple instances of adding sentences that can be construed as biased like "All these efforts were fruitless" when the point has already been made that the efforts made were rejected. The dissenting opinion in this case was clearly demarcated as the minority opinion, however, more than one sentence describing the opinion would have been of use and make the article appear more balanced.

The article is well written with no obvious grammar issues. The section organization is logical and flows well. However, this article is bogged down in law-terms that the average person would not be familiar with. The sentence, "The term "second or successive" is a term of art; not every subsequent habeas petition is subject to AEDPA's bar on second or successive habeas petitions" by itself required me to make numerous searches to define terms such as "term of art". If this article could maintain its integrity by using these terms but also provide definitions it would allow readers to understand the topic and follow the logic presented in the paragraphs.

This article has a singular image. However, I question if any photos would enhance the understanding of the article. The provided image, the seal of SCOTUS, is appropriate.

There are no discussions on this article's talk page.

I would put this article's status at B and underdeveloped at around a 70% completion rate. The article goes over the background of the case and has sections outlining the important aspects of how the court case to their decision. There is a lot of necessary information already added to the page. However, it lacks a section going over the court decision and that decisions implications. Also adding more references and in-line citations are high on the list of necessary steps for this article to have legitimacy.