User:Nmittal22/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: Social Work
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate: In looking through the academic disciplines category, I came across social work as something I have always been interested in but never been able to concretely explain, so I thought this evaluation would be an interesting exercise in doing so!

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * 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 very clearly categorizes social work as an academic discipline and profession, and provides a somewhat vague allusion to its role in "enhancing social functioning". It goes on to explain the core of social functioning and does a good job of exploring the various applications/disciplines that are related to social work. It starts to explain the development of the industry, as a way to establish why the discipline exists today. While this is helpful, the Lead does not include an overview of the sections of the article so it does leave readers confused as to if there will be a more elaborate "history" section provided. I would say the Lead is pretty concise and provides a good gist of the key features of (or rather key confusions that people associate with) social work, but could have more of a transitionary section before the major sections.

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 presented is largely relevant to the topic, but does go on a tangent at points such as mentioning "Social Work in Literature" or "Fictional Social Workers in Media". The article is definitely up-to-date, and the nature of the topic is such that it is constantly evolving so the authors can update the examples used as time progresses - but they are definitely relevant and well included as of now. I would argue that the literature and media applications sections are the ones that do not fully feel like they belong on this page. Though they are examples of social work, I would consider them less relevant ones and think the article would benefit from a more detailed explanation of some of the professions listed in an earlier paragraph. The article also holds a lot of information, that is important to a holistic understanding of the topic, but lacks cohesion as it transitions between sections. There is a jump from the explanation of the discipline to history to representative models and then to the profession, which can be confusing to some readers.

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 think the article is largely neutral, and well written in that, but I also noticed an underlying assumption with which the article was written. There seems to be the (rightful) assumption that general readers are not aware of the profession and discipline of social work. Accordingly, each section of the article is written with a slightly over-explanatory tone and the sense that the author is trying to convince readers of the legitimacy or relevance of the discipline in its entirety. The article does not explicitly try to persuade the reader in favor or away from the discipline, and it definitely offers objective information that better informs readers about the discipline as a whole.

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
All facts in the article are backed up by reliable secondary sources of information, and the citation links are relatively current due to the fact that the discipline had not been established till recently. There are points of the article, such as in the Lead and the section on Trade Unions, that could benefit from external citation to make their explanations stronger and allow for readers to read further. There is an extensive "see also" section and references list, with links that actually lead to really interesting further readings!

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
I thought the sections of the article were well divided, but the article lacked a sense of cohesion between explanation of the history and then profession and applications of social work as a discipline. All the sections that were included definitely aided in the understanding of social work, but some of them felt as thought they could be separate pages entirely - rather than trying to explain the relevance of something like fictional presence of social work. There were no evident grammatical mistakes or spelling errors, but the formatting of their lists could be improved in certain sections for better readability.

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 were only two images used, that didn't add anything to the explanation or understanding of the topic as a whole. The first one was a stock photo, adhering to regulations, of a military social worker counseling a soldier, and the second was one of a slum (also adhering to regulation) in the section dedicated to history of social work. Understandably, this is a difficult topic to try and represent in photos or any media format, but even some diagrams in the "Transtheoretical Models" sections might have helped to break up heavy text blocks.

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 conversations on the talk page were limited, and the article was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the criteria at the time of publishing. It is rated as a level-4 vital article in Society, and rated C-class, but B-class within the WikiProject Social Work. Someone raised the point that "Social Care" redirects to Social Work which do not seem directly synonymous, as social work relates to the study and professional application rather than the conception of social care in itself. We have begun to talk about examples and contexts that are directly related to social work, as we are in a public economics class, but this article is presented in a very logical/theoretical format which differs from the qualitative and sometimes subjective discussions we have in class.

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
The article is definitely a great starting point for the topic and developing an understanding of social work, as well as its place in society as an interdisciplinary area. Its strengths are definitely in the simplified explanation it provides of this interdisciplinary nature, as well as the historical grounding of the discipline - which I personally learned a lot from. I think the article could definitely be improved by adding some more visuals or even diagrammatic representations to ease the reading, as well as including transitionary statements or sections between the existing ones. It currently, although is informative, feels like separate topic areas that have some relation to social work all put together section after section. The article is well-developed as a starting point, but I do not think it satisfies a thorough analysis or explanation of the extent of social work - and I don't think it needs to either, as long as it is making the references it is to further reading material.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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 * Link to feedback: Talk:Social work