User:Shriya175/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Public housing in the United Kingdom

Council house

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Public housing in the United Kingdom: The article explores various aspects of the sector. In particular, I think this article is important because it intricately lays out the history of how public housing developed in the country, which is helpful to consider wider debates in the sector. My first impression of the article was how well it was structured, in terms of the timeline. Similarly, it clarifies some key terms that are essential to the debates. At the same time, I think it misses out on some analysis.in that it may list events that have happened but does not delve deeper into the reasoning behind the changes. For this reason, I have chosen to evaluate this article in hopes of adding some critical approaches to key events of the timeline. In particular, I plan to add the role 'commodification' and 'financialization' played in the shifting identity of the public housing sector.

Council house: I chose this article, as opposed to housing association which is what my PE org is, because this area helps identify and establish the key debates of the sector better. In particular, the argument the portrayal of council houses as places emnating poverty was key for the reduction of public housing and shift to a social housing model. Although the sector article does include it, this article is missing the characterisation of council houses as ‘problem places’ and how that has been used to advance the agenda against more social housing. I plan to create a new section title ‘criticisms’ and add debates about the ‘sink estate’.

Evaluate the article
Public housing in the United Kingdom

Lead Section: I think the lead section does a good job of introducing the sector although it does lack the very definition of public housing. However, it notes the shift from 'public' to 'social housing' with housing associations coming into the picture which is helpful in identifying the difference between the two.

Content: The content, especially under the history section, is pretty solid. Yet I do think the article limited to a very descriptive analysis, even under the public debates section is is arguably meant to bring out the key issues. Moreover, there is a limited mention of how the debate has essentially become racialized.

Tone & Balance: I believe the article is relatively neutral. For instance, it usually lists out the original intention of legislation passed by the government and then details the actual results of it. Reading the article does not give the impression of it being biased except for when referring to the pictures (addressed below)

Sources and References: Although the content of sources is good, many of the sources are more than a decade old (usually dating back to 2009 to 2010). It could be useful to incorporate some recent sources.

Organization and Writing Quality: The writing quality of the article is good because it is easy to read with concisely framed sentences. The structure looses its place sometimes. For example, the sub-headings under a main heading are relatively well organised but the main headings themselves are a bit randomly placed.

Images and Media: The images are relevant to the content. What is especially effective is placing a picture of specific type of public housing, right next to the description.

Council house

Lead Section: The lead section is good as it clarifies the definition of a council house and a very brief history of how they developed.

Content: The content is actually quite impressive with a detailed section of different designs of council houses and the history. Yet it is relatively short and missing some key information such as criticisms. Similar to the sector article, it also lacks analysis and tends to be on the descriptive side.

Tone & Balance: The article is neutral and concisely sums up information. I think it also hard to judge any biases because there is hardly anything beyond descriptive information so without any analysis, it is hard to judge. Yet the overall impression does not seem tp persuade the reader towards a specific position.

Sources and References: There are a variety of sources but there are barely any recent articles.

Organization and Writing Quality: The writing quality is not the best with a few grammatical errors. The organisation is decent but because the article lacks some content, some sections seem relatively short.

Images and Media: The images in the article are relevant but I do think they are bit biased in that the representation of the housing is a bit skewed. This is because all the houses pictured are probably the nicest ones and there are no pictures from inside the houses. When talking about structural problems, it could have been helpful to have visual representations of what houses look from inside and why, sometimes, they are inhabitable.