User:YOWtapper/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Knowledge gap hypothesis

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 found this article by searching through the academic categories, then communications and media. The topic caught my eye and got me interested! I was curious to know what the article is about. The length seems about right - detailed but not so long that it needs to split. It's a C-class article, linked also to sociology, so I think that I can look for places that it might need some work.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The lead section starts with a concise sentence. It does not summarize the following sections, but it is a mid-length article so the sections are straightforward. The lead does briefly introduce the first section, Foundations, but could be expanded to touch on the following nine sections. The lead is perhaps too concise, noting the sections that are missing.

The article's content seems to be relevant to the title. The content may not be up-to-date, judging by the edit record (few edits in the last 5 years) and the talk page (two very brief notes). There may be new studies, particularly about the effects of Web 2.0 that could be relevant to this topic. The most recent cited study is from 2011. This article indirectly deals with an equity gap because the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis deals with differences between those of various socioeconomic statuses.

The article seems to be neutral. It includes a section for criticisms as well as notes about potential future research. There is also a section that discusses competing hypotheses. There does not seem to be an attempt to persuade the reader in favour of a specific viewpoint.

There are 14 citations used, from a variety of academic and peer-reviewed sources. As mentioned earlier, the most newest reference in the list of references is dated 2011, so these may not represent the most up-to-date references available. There may be an opportunity to add additional citations from a more recent publication. There are twelve authors (or groups of authors) represented in the 14 references. The authors are predominantly male, although at least two are female. Most of the authors seem to be US-based, or at least are conducting research in the USA and publishing in American publications. At least two are based in the EU. Several names have orthographies that suggest that the writer may be non-Caucasian, which gives wider variance to the range of authors. I checked all 14 links and they work.

The organization and writing quality is good. I did not observe spelling or grammar errors. It is organized into eleven logical sections. The article doesn't contain any images. Aside from some of the authors who first proposed the hypothesis, there may not be many relevant images for the subject matter.

As mentioned, the talk page has few discussion items. It is categorized as a C-class article.

My overall impression is that this is a good article that is well developed. It is concise, well-written, and well-organized. I think it can be improved by checking for any updates to this hypothesis from the last ten years, and adding any recent supporting academic articles to the references section.