User:O.Joness22/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: Legal history
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I chose this article because it is related to history. It seemed interesting just by looking at it. After reading through the article it went on to describe how the legal law has changed over time. Also in Women in World History we constantly talked about how the laws were evolving through time and how it affected individuals around the world.

Lead

 * Guiding question

Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and is set in the wider context of social history. Among certain jurists and historians of legal process, it has been seen as the recording of the evolution of laws and the technical explanation of how these laws have evolved with the view of better understanding the origins of various legal concepts; some consider it a branch of intellectual history. Twentieth century historians have viewed legal history in a more contextualised manner more in line with the thinking of social historians. They have looked at legal institutions as complex systems of rules, players and symbols and have seen these elements interact with society to change, adapt, resist or promote certain aspects of civil society. Such legal historians have tended to analyse case histories from the parameters of social science inquiry, using statistical methods, analysing class distinctions among litigants, petitioners and other players in various legal processes. By analysing case outcomes, transaction costs, number of settled cases they have begun an analysis of legal institutions, practices, procedures and briefs that give us a more complex picture of law and society than the study of jurisprudence, case law and civil codes can achieve.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes, the introductory sentence is the definition of Legal History
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? Yes, there is the introduction paragraph then a content box which includes 12 sections in which you can click on the hyperlink and it will directly take you to that section in the article.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? No, it doesn't. Everything that is present in the article is what I read.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? The lead is concise and straight to the point. The introduction does not need to be long at all.

Lead evaluation

 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? Everything in this article is relevant to the topic. Nothing distracted me while reading it.
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? Updated information should be added for sure
 * What else could be improved? More information on each area. It seems like the author scanned the surface on most of the topics in the article.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * 1 Ancient world
 * 2 Southern Asia
 * 3 Eastern Asia
 * 4 Canon law
 * 5 Islamic law
 * 6 European laws
 * 6.1 Roman Empire
 * 6.2 Middle Ages
 * 6.3 Modern European law
 * 7 United States
 * 8 See also
 * 9 Notes
 * 10 References
 * 11 Further reading
 * 12 External links


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?Yes, it shows the legal history of each area in the country.
 * Is the content up-to-date?No, the content is not up to date. It does not seem like this page has been edited in a very long time.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? I don't think a "see also" link should be in the content box. It is not needed at all.

Content evaluation

 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? The "see also" page distracted me I don't think it was necesarru for the contents page.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? Yes the article is neutral.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? It does not seem like the author spent a lot of time researching information on the United States based on how small the paragraph is. He seemed to favor the middle ages little bit more
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? United States is for sure underrepresented
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? The author does not persuade the reader anyway because you can't really persuade someone with this neutral topic.

Tone and balance evaluation
'''The tone is very neutral. No strong or negative language was used to get the point across. Only facts being explicated in a straightforward attitude.'''

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes the sources are reliable secondary sources
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? The sources are thorough most of them are educational sources that are reliable
 * Are the sources current? No the most up to date reference I found was from 2011 which was almost 10 years ago. This page seems very outdated.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? All of the links work

Sources and references evaluation
References aren't in alphabetical order but they are cited correctly.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? Article was very easy to read
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? No grammatical or spelling errors
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes it is.

Organization evaluation
Organization is well

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? Yes
 * Are images well-captioned? Not really. Description is sort of vague
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? Yes
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? Yes they are not too big and not too much

Images and media evaluation
Images well, but descriptions vague

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? The talk page was very interesting to look at. A lot of the editors brought up points that I didn't even think about. For instance, one person stated in February about how the author should connect these laws together.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? I think it is apart of one wiki project
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? Wikipedia has a different lingo when it comes to discussing the articles. They have their own way of editing articles to make them clearer and concise. However, in class we still asked ourselves when reading the PDE's the same exact questions to make sure the source was reliable.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? I would say the article is average. It's not bad, but it could be better as far as more information being included.
 * What are the article's strengths? The article's strength was the introduction because it was really strong and led me to read more about the topic
 * How can the article be improved? More up to date information and also combining all the laws together in how they influenced each other.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? Well-developed

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

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback:Talk:Legal history