User:Mayaavela/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Gender studies

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I study Gender Studies and wanted to see how writers would depict it on Wikipedia. This subject matters because in order to create equality for marginalized groups, the public needs to understand the subject matter. My preliminary impression was that there was more information available than I thought there would be.

Evaluate the article
The lead of the article includes all the topics that are later discussed in the article. Since the topic, gender studies, is a broad topic, the lead did a good job of keeping the topics included in gender studies concise and clearly organized. The lead also included links to other articles that would create more clarity in the minds of those who are confused about the subject matter. All of the information mentioned in the in the lead is later presented in the article.

The article's content is divided into easy to follow categories that are clear and informational. Each section is relevant to the topics and makes comprehension easier. The content is up tp date as recently as 2018. There is some content missing from the Women's studies section but it does link the main article for Women's studies for more thorough information. Other than that it does not seem as though any information is missing. The article includes historically marginalized communities such as women and queer folks.

The article is written from a neutral point of view. The only time a specific point of view was presented in the article was in the section that described opposition to gender studies but was written in an academic way to not provide biased writing. However, minority viewpoints are not explicitly expressed as such. They are simply written as "so-and-so says this" but there is no elaboration on how this is a minority viewpoint. Despite this, the article does not seem to sway readers toward one point of view over another.

Not all of the facts stated have citations available and therefore not backed by secondary sources. The sources that are provided, however, are very thorough. There is a good mix of historical and current sources provided. Since the topic has historical context, the earlier sources cited, from the 1990s for example, are necessary. As a result, the sources are from a diverse spectrum of authors. Due to the nature of the topic, authors that are cited belong to historically marginalized groups. Each source seems to be credible and not from a random website or news coverage. The links in the article also work.

The article is organized in a way that is concise and easy to read. It follows a logical train of thought and is organized well. However, some of the content in the sections was dense for a general public. It included lofty language that can be difficult to follow without previous knowledge on the subject matter. Each topic is sectioned off well with each topic relating to the next easily. The article also has little grammatical or spelling errors. Overall, the organization of the article makes comprehension of the subject matter easy.

The article only includes two images. The first is at the beginning of the article and is the symbol of a female in pink. The second is towards the end of the article. It depicts a protest in Warsaw in 2014. The first image is not captioned but the second is. Both images enhance the article. The first by signaling the subject matter and the second for showing a current example of the subject matter. The images do adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. Both images are subtle and do not interrupt the flow of the article. Therefore they are arranged in an appealing way.

The main discussion on the talk page are discussing how to make the article more neutral. Another said that the article was "one of the most unreadable and opaque articles I've accessed on Wikipedia." Essentially, the main discussion is that the article does not include language that is accessible for a general public with no prior knowledge. The article has been rated a C-Class. It is also apart of several WikiProjects including, WikiProject Gender studies, WikiProject Sexology and sexuality and others. The way that wikipedia differs from the way that we have discussed Gender studies in class because this article focuses on a broader picture. It also focuses on theory rather than application.

Overall, my impression is that the article is decent in trying to understand Gender studies but at times is written in a way that makes comprehension hard to understand. The article's main strength is the way that it was organized. There were also several resources for people to look up their own research outside of the article. The article could be improved by adding more context for certain theories. I think that the article has been developed decently but could definitely be improved. It is not a complete article.