User:Yasmiiine/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: African-American literature
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate: I chose this article because we are in an African American Lit course. This is a pretty broad topic, so it would be nice to see what is done with the subject.

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's beginning was great and informative. It wasn't entirely clear in the beginning what some of the main sections were, you didn't see it until you got to the table of contents. However, I do believe that it was used to give an overall summary of the subject, because this is such a broad topic. From what I remember there wasn't any information not included/ not spoken about in depth later on in the article that was mentioned in the lead. The lead, for the subject matter, is fairly concise, and managed to get a lot of information about African American lit in just a few paragraphs.

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?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Content evaluation
The article is very relevant to the topic. It was nice to see some familar names and be introduced to some new ones. The content seems pretty up to date, nothing seems to have been edited as of this year though. Some of the missing content discussed on the Talk Page had a lot to do with the use of AAVE, missing work from the 1960s, and even missing writers. But some of those issues seemed to have been resolved. Other than that, the content is good. Yes, it deals with African American literature, and the people surrounding the subject, This deals with an equity gap.

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
The tone is very informational. There doesn't seem to be much persuasion going on in either way. I think that the female writers section could be longer. There are plenty African American women writers.There aren't any biased opinions as far as I can tell, so I think the article is good in that aspect.

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?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
This article has so many great sources and references. The ones I clicked on related to the topic fairly well, and were thorough. The sources were as current a they could be, being that thie article is about history. There are a lot of sources, and many different articles. There are too many to look through, but they are diverse and there are a lot from marginalized individuals. The links for some worked, and some links didn't take me directly to the works mentioned.

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
The article is very well written, and well organized. We know what to expect in each section amd get just that. While long, it isn't hard to get through. I'm sure there are some grammar errors, but they seemed to be fixed going based on the Talk Page. Overall, you see a nice progression of the history of African American lit, it looks really good.

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 a total of 5-6 images. They all had to do with many of the authors discussed, so they were relevant and well-captioned. They follow WIki's copyright regulations as well, and are nicely placed in relation to the section they belong to.

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
Many of the issues discussed are about including more information. So AAVE, Female writers, and a few other things. There didn't seem to be too much of a response from the original creator of the article, so a lot of people were talking to themselves. The article was a former featured article, so I'd assume it's rated fairly high. It doesn't look to be a part of any WikiProjects, but is of interest to some, including: African Diaspora, Literature, and United States. In class, we focus on a few authors and readings, while they try to encompass the subject in its entirety. So that's a big task compared to what we've done 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
Overall, I like this article, for it to have been a featured article at one point says a lot. Majority of the article's strength comes from how much information it provides and the resources given. The article could be improved, I agree with some of the others that it could include a little more about African American women writers, so far there only seems to be three mentioned in-depth within that section. Other than that, the article seems to be pretty much complete; it's very welll developed, it just needs some more tweaking.

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: i don't believe the talk page is active anymore, so I decided not to leave any feedback!