User:Ngdana/Evaluate an Article

= Sector Article: Community Organizing =

Which article are you evaluating?
Community organizing

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

Though my organization focuses on feminist economics, their method of advocacy is through raising awareness and educating communities about the issue. That's why I thought it was fitting to pick an article about community organizing. This article talks very broadly about community organizing, giving the readers an international understanding about the grassroots practice as well as significant historical events that contribute to the current practice itself. There was also a section that defines what community organizing is not. One of the characteristics mentioned was advocacy. I thought this was interesting because WEAP is using community organizing as a form of advocacy. This made me even more curious to evaluate this article. Briefly skimming the article, there is a lack of content about feminist community organizing. I thought by evaluating this article, I can also add feedback on important topics that have yet to make an appearance on the article.

Evaluate the article
Content:


 * This article's content focuses on the historical and political context of community organizing. Though it is important, it should not be the majority/entirety of the article, as it skews readers away from the actual topic of community organizing. This article should contain actual content about community-organizing. This means methods, general practice models, theories behind community-organizing as those who come to this page probably want to understand what is community-organizing and how it is executed. There should also be information on different types of community-organizing, as each type is centered around a different goal/community, and how these goals shift the general practice model & discourses on community-organizing. Though there is content on the different types of community-organizing, the headings are confusing, as faith-based organizing or political-based organizing can also be grassroots organizing; they're not completely separate entities. I also observe that the author put a section on "what community-organizing is not." Though I did find this section insightful, the lack of information on what community-organizing is leaves readers confused.
 * Some of the content is also not up-to-date as the information are derived from sources from the 1980s.

Tone and Balance:


 * My impression coming into this article would be learning about the actual practice of community-organizing (techniques, how these techniques shifts depending on the goal of the organizers), but this article talks more about the politics and the political atmosphere of community organizing events. Though I understand, the importance of political context as it was the catalyzer of community-organizing, it should not be the majority of the article. It should just support the practice models, theories, perspectives on community organizing itself.
 * It is extremely biased, because a lot of the examples and significant events mentioned in thee article are liberal/radical community-organizing. Though it does make sense, since community-organizing focuses on empowering marginalized communities, completely ignoring community-organizing at the other end of the political spectrum is biased.
 * Though this article as a neutral point of view on democratic community-organizing, there is a lack of content on republican community organizing. The article emphasizes that community-organizing is not politically driven, but I find that hard to believe because the article focuses on targeted marginalized communities. Though republican community-organizing may not be a popular topic, it should be mentioned in the article to keep a neutral point of view. This article also is completely biased in the historical sections. It feels like I'm reading a political agenda.

Sources and References:


 * As mentioned earlier, the article is biased, hence the references are also biased. Titles like: Reveille for Radicals, Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy, Roots for Radicals, are politically biased.

Talk Page:


 * Conversations in the talk page emphasize the need for this article to be rewritten and re-organized. Many also express feeling like they are reading a "political agenda."

= Area/Issue/Historical Article: Feminist Economics & Omission of Gender and Race =

Which article are you evaluating?
Feminist economics

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because my practice experience organization focuses on women economic injustice, hence it categorizes the community organizers as feminist theorizers with background in feminism and economics. My organization also targets empowerment within a highly racially marginalized community. Overall, in the discussion of economics, there is a focus on the lack of gender and racial equity. This topics matters because American society tends to correlate the amount of productivity in the labor market with economics growth. Therefore those who are unemployed or depend on welfare are looked down as they as their unproductive is perceived as an individual choice. Feminist economics recognizes that forces of gender and race affect an individual's labor market opportunities, alluding to notion that economic inequality disproportionately affect minorities and women. Feminist economics also recognizes that economic gaps are causes by systematic problems, specifically structures and institutions of power lack of recognition on unpaid care labor and other domestic responsibilities of women. My preliminary impression of the article is definitely positive. The article is logically organized, and does not see biased towards a certain theories or framework; the article is informative not persuasive.

Evaluate the article
Content:


 * This article starts off with a historical upbringing of feminist economics and then a section of what exactly the field critiques in traditional economics. Though there are multiple things that feminist economics critiques in traditional economics the overarching theme is extreme exertion of patriarchal and masculine ideologies, disproportionately stigmatizing and marginalizing women from the wealth of the labor market and capitalism. Following the section of critiques, there is a section on what frameworks, practices, and ideologies feminist economists are pushing to engender the field of economics as well as a section methodologies, data collection tools. This article gives an unbiased holistic overview on what exactly feminist economics is about.
 * The content is up-to-date, with the most recent source as 2014, but isn't as up-to-date as it could be. There has been new research and scholarly articles released about building a sense of agency for women and pushing for women empowerment, a recent proposed solution to the problem of women economic inequality.

Tone and Balance:


 * As stated before, the tone is neutral and informative. The section that critiques traditional economics gives sufficient information on the ideologies of traditional economics and its limitations on gender and racial equality. Following that section it gives frameworks, theories, approaches on feminist economics.
 * Though the tone is not biased or persuasive, I do wish there was more positive background on traditional economics. Though it is intuitive to critique traditional economics as this article is highlighting its dichotomy, I believe reviewing traditional economics in its own critique section skews towards a more biased viewpoint.
 * As a follow up to my last point, any criticism section has a tendency to put down a certain viewpoint. But since thee points made in that section are fairly important to the discussion of feminist economics, I would suggest renaming and rewriting the section to something that is more focused on giving a holistic historical background on traditional economics.

Talk Page:


 * The talk page is very quiet and limited, but those that have expressed their thoughts on the article have posted positive commentaries, only with fairly detailed and subjective critiques. An example is questioning the need for the critiques section, as criticism sections tend to compromise the neutral tone of an article.