User:Rachel Clemens/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Talk:Disinformation Disinformation

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose the Wikipedia page Disinformation because it is a relevant topic in the online and media world today. This is as we often hear about the disinformation surrounding a topic, this has been a large topic with the Covid-19 Pandemic and information spread online. My preliminary impression of the article was that the article has a lot of good information on the topic with a lot of good examples. The wording on the article is a little hard to read. However, there is a lot of good sources and citation throughout the article.

Evaluate the article
Lead:

The article has a strong lead that summarizes the article in one sentence. The lead mentions most of what is talked about in the article. However, it could be more clear by going less into the history of the word, leaving it for a body paragraph. The lead could be more concise, it is a little lengthy.

'''Content: '''The content of the article is relevant to the topic of disinformation as it gives many examples and touches on different aspects of the topic, giving the reader a good understanding of the topic. The content goes up to 2016, this is fairly up to date. However, to make the content even more up to date the article could have a section on disinformation in the current Covid-19 pandemic, it mentions in the lead but does not have a section for it. There is a note on the article saying to possibly make the part on Russia it's own page, this would be good as it would spilt up the content and make an easier read for the reader.

Tone and Balance:

For the most part the article is neutral. The article does talk about things different government have done in the form of disinformation but does not state any negative comments about the outcomes. The article gives the facts and has no personal undertones. The view points surrounding Russia do not show their side of the argument. However, they state the facts on what Russia has done. The main points are well balanced. The points further to the end of the article have less information on them and could use some work to become fully balanced. This article does not attempt to persuade the reader.

Sources and References:

This article does a grate job of linking the information to sources in every sentence. The sources for the article range in dates published. Many are from 2021, making them up to date. These are the ones that refer to the definition of the word, making it a good source. The sources that are from a while ago refer to the information in the article that took place a while ago, making them also a good source. The sources come from a wide range of authors and, forms of academic sources. There are 72 sources on the article, I believe that the proper information and sources has been found due to the wide range of sources. The sources for the article work.

Organization and Writing Quality:

The article is fairly well written, some wording could be more concise, over all it is easy to read. When reading the article I did not pick up on any spelling or grammar errors. The article is very well organized and broken down properly. This is as each section flows in a time line, starting with oldest examples of disinformation first. As well as each section not being to long and getting right to the point. It feels as if one person wrote the whole article and not many editors (even though many editors did)

Images and Media:

Half of the images help the reader understand the topic better, as for the other half they are images of people mentioned in the article. That being said all the images are well captioned and, help the reader understand the importance of the image. All the images are citied properly and adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. The images are laid out in a visually appealing way and do not hinder the text. The last image could be more up to date as it explains how disinformation can be spread and it is from 2001, a lot has changed since then.

Talk Page Discussion:

There is not a lot of discussion on the talk page. That being said there is talk about making a subpage for the part of the article about Russia and disinformation. I think this is a good idea as the main article mentions it frequently. This article was apart of two Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignments that took place in 2020 and 2021. The last time the talk page was used was December 23 2021. The way the article differs from how I have learnt about it is by putting focus on the history of the word and goes further in detail about the topic.

Overall Impressions:

The over all status of the article is good. This is as the article is planed out well and, presented in a logical way. The main strengths of the article are the number of good academic sources, the proper in text links to the sources and, the logical flow of information. The article can be improved by having a separate page for the section about Russia. As well as by updating the article to mention disinformation about Covid-19. The article is well developed with many different examples of disinformation.