User:Dancer0211/Politics of the United States/KStanfo Peer Review

Peer review

This is where you will complete your peer review exercise. Please use the following template to fill out your review.

General info

• Whose work are you reviewing?
  • Dancer0211
• Link to draft you're reviewing:
  • User:Dancer0211/Politics of the United States

Lead

Guiding questions:

• Has the Lead been updated to reflect the new content added by your peer?
• 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 has not been updated in this draft, but there are many changes that could be made if the editor chooses to expand their draft.

The unchanged lead is fairly concise and has brief, self-contained descriptions about aspects of American politics and paints a broad picture of how American politics work, but the topics previewed in the lead to not necessarily seam to align with the topics covered throughout the article. For example, the lead talks entirely about federal government, while the article itself has sections about state and local governments but nothing about the federal government. Many changes could be made to make the lead more "on-topic" and make it better preview the content covered within.

Content

Guiding questions:

• Is the content added relevant to the topic?
• Is the content added up-to-date?
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation

The content added is relevant to the topic of politics and aptly links social media to it, but there is zero specificity towards political matters happening within the United States. The United States is mentioned once in this new content, and the content could be put, in its entirety, into an article about politics in general with few to no changes. No specific American political figures, campaigns, or events are alluded to, and future edits would benefit from adding this information so that information is given about politics in the United States, not just politics in general.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions:

• Is the content added neutral?
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• Does the content added attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation

The new content is, for the most part, neutral, but the last paragraph breaks this neutrality by asserting that the construction of posts is a "problem". A more impartial way to present this information would be to state that a particular group of people (i.e. "many scholars", or "scholars such as" followed by a specific mention of the writer you cite in this paragraph) see this as a problem. In this same sentence, America's political system is referred to as "our" political system, which alienates any readers who are not from America.

Sources and References

Guiding questions:

• Is all new content 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?
• Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

New content is backed up by three sources - roughly one source per paragraph. Most information that is not a common sense conclusion is backed by a source. All sources are thorough and have been produced within the past 8 years, but given the wealth of information and studies about the internet and social media produced in the last few years and the growing importance of social media in the modern world (recall that, as noted in the digital rhetoric article, social media use among political candidates and campaigns has seen massive boosts in the past 4 or so years), there are surely more recent and relevant sources on this topic matter. All of the links work, but one of the citations appears to have been automatically rendered as a Shibboleth authentication request instead of a proper citation.

Organization

Guiding questions:

• Is the content added well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
• Does the content added have any grammatical or spelling errors?
• Is the content added well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation

Content is broken into well-organized paragraphs that each have their own topic, topic sentence, and supporting evidence. Content is largely concise, but one part ("The social media world constructs the tools used to produce and distribute diverse content spanning many different concepts.") stands out as overly wordy without truly providing much information. The last paragraph contains a few errors, including spelling "affecting" as "effecting" (affect is a verb, effect is a noun), creating a run-on sentence ("The way that posts are constructed is effecting our political system, is a very new problem in the Politics of the United States.") and capitalizing "politics" in the next sentence as if "Politics of the United States" is a formal, official title.

Images and Media

Guiding questions: If your peer added images or media

• 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

New images or media were not added.

For New Articles Only

If the draft you're reviewing is a new article, consider the following in addition to the above.

• Does the article meet Wikipedia's Notability requirements - i.e. Is the article supported by 2-3 reliable secondary sources independent of the subject?
• How exhaustive is the list of sources? Does it accurately represent all available literature on the subject?
• Does the article follow the patterns of other similar articles - i.e. contain any necessary infoboxes, section headings, and any other features contained within similar articles?
• Does the article link to other articles so it is more discoverable?

New Article Evaluation

This is not a new article.

Overall impressions

Guiding questions:

• Has the content added improved the overall quality of the article - i.e. Is the article more complete?
• What are the strengths of the content added?
• How can the content added be improved?

Overall evaluation

The content added has a strong foundation, especially in a modern world where social media grows increasingly important to everything we do. The research done and sources provided illustrate well the roles that social media plays in modern politics. However, the content is hampered by a lack of any specificity about American politics. There are no particular American political figures, events, or campaigns alluded to in this section, which is likely to make readers ask why the section is included in an article about American politics instead of just politics in general. Adding that specific information, and examples of the concepts discussed in this section in general, would significantly strengthen the content.

There are also no other pages linked in this draft. Making specific words or concepts from this section into links would help to better integrate it into the context of Wikipedia's purpose as an Encyclopedia and ensure that no readers are left confused about what is being talked about.