User:Aklein2024/Evaluate an Article
 | Evaluate an article
Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider: Lead sectionA good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.
ContentA good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.
Tone and BalanceWikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.
Sources and ReferencesA Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.
Organization and writing qualityThe writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.
Images and Media
Talk page discussionThe article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article, and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.
Overall impressions
Examples of good feedbackA good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved. |
Which article are you evaluating?[edit]
Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?[edit]
I chose this article because we covered it in detail in class. This means that I will be more able to appropriately evaluate it, as I will have context and knowledge of the topic. Additionally, due to being part of our readings, it is obviously highly relevant to the overall content of the course.
Evaluate the article[edit]
Lead Section
The leading sentence of the article concisely outlines the date of publication, language, and author. This, when combined with the second sentence describing it as a "founding document of modern Jewish nationalism" provides key context to the rest of the article. It could potentially be improved by specifying that Auto-Emancipation is a key example of specifically Political Zionism. Instead of providing an outline to the rest of the sections of the article, the lead section is essentially home to the entire article. That is, the article could be improved by putting much of the content of the leading section into new sections. Hence, the leading section includes almost exclusively information that is not present in the main body of the article, and this should be fixed.
Content
The article does not include any blatantly irrelevant information, largely because of its short length. There is, however, a lot of content that is missing that could have been included. It does not describe in detail the context in which the pamphlet was published, and does not make any reference to Pinsker's numerous criticisms of Jewish emancipation as a solution to Judeophobia. Additionally, it does not mention Pinsker's condemnation of Jews using religious arguments to avoid the creation of a Jewish state.
Tone and Balance
The article's tone is very neutral. Nonetheless, it does imply that this pamphlet is Zionist, which although true, is somewhat anachronistic because that term was not coined by Nathan Birnbaum until several years later in 1890.[1]
Sources and References
The article does not have enough citations. Although there should be a citation approximately every few sentences or at least every paragraph, there are several unreferenced paragraphs in the article. Furthermore, one of the sources came from the online catalogue of Azure, a journal that was known for pushing Zionist values. This reference could likely be replaced by an article from a third-party source. Another source used links to a personal webpage in which a professor wrote a short biography of Pinsker. This could also be replaced by a reference to a peer-reviewed journal. Even so, all the links seem to be working, which is good.
Organization and Writing Quality
As I mentioned previously, the organization is lacking because the article does not sufficiently make use of different sections. The only actual section outside of the leading section is for quotes, which may be inappropriate anyways because they are direct, multi-sentence extracts from the original text with no additional commentary. I believe that the article would benefit by having different sections dedicated to Leon Pinsker himself, the context behind the writing of the pamphlet, and its impact on future Zionists. There are no blatant spelling or grammatical errors.
Images and Media
The image is relevant and seems to be from the public domain. It does not specify whether this was the original cover of the document or some other edition in the caption.
Talk Page
The talk page is very limited. It is a part of the Israel WikiProject under the Start-class.
- ^ Olson, Jess (2007). "The Late Zionism of Nathan Birnbaum: The Herzl Controversy Reconsidered". AJS Review. 31 (2): 241–76 – via JSTOR.