User:Meganmsweeney13/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Deborah Sampson

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because I am writing my paper for HST 316 on women and gender in the American Revolution. Deborah Sampson has always been a figure of particular interest to me. I remember learning about Deborah Sampson in my history classes in elementary school, and even dressed up as her in our annual "Wax Museum" event, where students chose their favorite historical figures to dress up as and presented a research paper on them. It is important that this article is accurate because many students come to Wikipedia to gain a general knowledge of certain topics, figures and ideas. Sampson was one of a small number of women to fight in the Revolutionary War, so it is important that we provide students and other Wikipedians with accurate and complete information on this figure. I chose this article also because it was listed under one of the C-Class articles under women's history as well as American history. When I read through the article for the first time, I noticed that a lot of sentences were left without citations, especially under the "Life After the Military" section. This leads me to believe that this article is in need of some editing, as many of the statements made in the article did not have citations. After reading the talk page, a lot of other editors agreed that more relevant citations needed to be added, and information needed to be corrected.

Evaluate the article
The lead section for the Deborah Sampson article is short and to the point. However, the opening sentence is long and wordy, and makes it a bit hard to read. The article does not really provide an introduction or list to the article's major sections. It fails to reference any of the sections. I also believe that some of the sources referenced in this section could be more scholarly, and it would be easy to find an educational biography to reference instead of a website. The lead does not contain any information that is not present in the article. It is concise, but more information could be added due to the significance of this figure.

Almost all of the content is relevant to the topic of the article, Deborah Sampson herself. However, I would change the Life After the Military section because it lacks the sources needed for the information to be accurate and relevant. I would also add a section talking about recent gender studies having to do with Sampson. This is a recent finding and discovery amongst scholars, but there are many academic journals that have discussed this. I was surprised that there was no mention of transgender or non-binary gender types throughout the article. So in essence, this viewpoint is not represented. That change would need to be made to the article because there are now studies on Deborah Sampson's gender identity. Other than that, the article is pretty unbiased. No viewpoint is heavily talked about. The authors even mention multiple leads on Sampson's father. If anything I would add more detail - if there is any - about Jonathan Sampson, who might have been Sampson's father because the other lead was talked about more.

Sources wise, the article lacks academic journals. Some sources consist of unreliable websites, historical fiction novels and a book of pseudonyms. I just feel as though some of this information that editors find could be found from a more academic source rather than these three types of sources. There are two sources that do not have links, and are most likely cited incorrectly. These sources are number six and number 24. Overall there are better sources available for this article. Many different peer reviewed sources are out there that discuss the ventures of Deborah Sampson. For instance, one source is a website called "Drunk History". I don't think that would be something I would cite in my paper, or an article that millions - if not billions - of people rely on to get educated about a topic.

I think that some areas of the article are more easy to read than others. I think that maybe someone should step in and try to rewrite sections so they flow better. Part of the talk page was about the misspelling of Deborah Sampson's last name. I would have to do more research on my own, but from all of the academic journal articles I have read, it has always been Sampson instead of Samson. The talk page for this article also discusses some contradictions the article has with other articles about this time period, such as the American Revolution page and Women's History page. The talk page mentions acts of vandalism that have occurred in the past. More recently, the talk page has discussed whether or not Sampson should be seen as a LGBTQ+ figure in history. I will add to this part of the talk page and list some academic references I have gathered that points to that she IS in fact a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Overall I think this article could be improved by providing better academic sources rather than just facts that have been gathered from unreliable websites. I also think that this article could benefit from a LGBTQ+ section which discusses gender in the revolutionary war and how Deborah Sampson relates to that. It is important to include every point of view, especially those who are underrepresented in today's society. I think this article is under-developed but could be a great article if someone rewrites some of the sections and includes more academic and scholarly sources.