User:KaiAbiola/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

• Name of article: Shirley Chisholm
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
  • Shirley Chisholm has always been a woman that has stood out to me. She was not only an author and educator, but also someone who paved the way for other Black women to find a place in politics. As the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Shirley Chisholm has shown me what it means to leave a lasting impact on the world, and for that reason and many more, I decided to evaluate this article.

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 does include an introductory sentence that describes Shirley Chisholm clearly and concisely; however, the description is very surface level, and in order to get a better understanding of who she was, you would have had to read the entire paragraph as opposed to only the introductory sentence. The article's major sections include Chisholm's career as an educator and the various parts of her career as a politician. In addition, the other sections include information regarding her legacy, her honors and awards, and her writings. That being said, there is not really a brief description of each one of these sections within the Lead itself. For example, the only mention of Chisholm being an educator is in the introductory sentence. On top of that, the Lead only mentions basic facts rather than a description in regards to her involvement in politics. This is seen particularly with the mention of the fact that she was the first Black woman elected to Congress as there are no further descriptions of what she specifically did in that role. Although most of the information found in the Lead can be located within the article's main content, there is a small piece of information mentioned that is only present in the Lead. To give an example, in the Lead, it says that Shirley Chisholm was the first woman to appear in a US presidential debate, but upon further reading of the article, there is no mention or further explanation of that fact in the section regarding her presidential campaign. All in all, although the Lead could have been more descriptive at times, it was concise enough to get a clear overview of the defining moments of Shirley Chisholm's life, which led to an overall better understanding of who Shirley Chisholm was.

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?

Content evaluation

The article's content is relevant to the topic. Since the article is a biography, all the information included relates to Shirley Chisholm, her life, her career, and her achievements. Because Shirley Chisholm passed away in 2005, all of the information is seemingly up-to date. In addition, the article mentions that she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, which is also an indicator that the article has been updated relatively recently. The Legacy and Honor and Awards sections have been updated recently as well. These sections include information from as recent as 2018. All the information included within the article seems to fit in well. The only thing that I would note is that there is information included in the Early Life and Education section that doesn't necessarily relate to that specific time in her life, but since it is necessary to the telling of her full story it is important that the content is at least included in the article. However, because each section of the article introduces new information that helps to further develop Chisholm's life story, everything included has its place within the article.

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 article is neutral because everything presented is a fact, and each fact doesn't present a certain opinion or viewpoint about Chisholm's life. After reading through the article, there aren't claims I saw that were heavily biased toward a particular position. However, I would say that there are a few viewpoints that seem overrepresented and underrepresented. For example, there is not a lot of focus on her career as an educator or state legislator in comparison to the focus that was placed on her career in Congress. Although I see why more importance was placed on that aspect of her life, the uneven balance kind of illustrates that politics should be the most important focus as opposed to other aspects of her life that may have shaped her. In my opinion, I don't think the article is necessarily trying to persuade the reader in favor of one position in relation to Shirley Chisholm's life, but with such an emphasis on politics the article could possibly be suggesting that politics is an element that should be a significant part of everyone's lives.

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?
• Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

Almost every sentence in the article has a footnote, which illustrated that the majority of the facts in the article are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information. After looking at the references list, the sources seem very thorough as over 80 sources were used to substantiate any of the facts mentioned throughout the article. However, even though I do think that there are possibly more sources available on the topic that could have been referenced, I think the article did a good job at reflecting a wide variety of literature available on the topic. The sources included are relatively current, but there are also quite a few sources that were published during Chisholm's lifetime. I think the use of both current sources as well as historical sources adds to the telling of her story and ensures that there is a deeper understanding, both past and present, in regards to Shirley Chisholm's life. A few of the links I checked led me to pages that were either not found or under protection in terms of needing a subscription to access it, which poses a problem in terms of being able to link the facts to a reliable source of secondary information. Even with this issue, however, a lot of the links did work and took me to sources of information that were accessible and seemed pretty reliable.

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

This article is well-written because it is very concise. In addition, it is clear and easy to read. Throughout the article, I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling errors, which was also a reason why I thought the article was well-written. In terms of organization, the article is broken down relatively well into sections. Each section refers to an important aspect of her life, and it provides an accurate description of each of those aspects. However, I think that the Early Life and Education section could be possibly split into two sections to make the article even more concise. Right now, the section includes information that might not be considered early life, and there is potential for that information to have its own section. Other than that, I think the organization of information is reasonable and makes the article easier to read.

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

I think the article does include images that enhance the understanding of the topic because they illustrate Chisholm in various parts of her life such as reviewing political statistics to attending the Democratic National Convention. I think these add to the telling of her story because it allows the reader to picture her alongside all of her achievements in her career. However, I would say that I wish the picture of her reviewing political statistics was explained more within the section it was placed as there doesn't necessarily seem to be strong context surrounding that image. The images are well captioned for the most part as they indicate what she is doing or what she is attending. The only one that I would say might need better captioning is the one present in the Subsequent Years and Death section because it only mentions who she was with and doesn't really explain any further than that. All of the images included do adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations as they are either public domain or obtained through a website that allows people to use images if the proper credit is given. In my opinion, the images are laid out in a visually appealing way. I also think that there are enough images to enhance the article without being too overwhelming. I would also add that the pictures are placed within the most reasonable sections of the article.

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

Most of the conversations going on in the Talk page refer to whether or not some of the facts are backed up by reliable sources of information. In addition to this though, there are conversations that focus on clarification and the use of pictures. The comments that focused on clarification wanted to ensure that Shirley Chisholm was not being misrepresented as the first Black candidate or the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. I did notice that even though comments were being made on the Talk page there weren't really many responses to these comments. The article is part of 6 active WikiProjects and is rated B-Class. However, I did notice that Wikipedia itself rates it C-Class. We haven't necessarily talked about this topic in class yet, so it's hard to make a comparison to the way Wikipedia discusses Shirley Chisholm.

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

There aren't any indications of what the article's overall status is, but it is not on the list of good articles. This suggests that the article can still be improved in many ways. In addition, since it is rated as a B-Class or C-Class article, there is an indication that even though the article is substantial it is still missing important content, which I think can be seen throughout the article. I think the article was really great at giving a good overview of Shirley Chisholm's life, but it could have gone more in-depth in regards to the various aspects of her life it chose to focus on. I think this would be a great place for improvement within the article. I think there is plenty of opportunity for things to be explained on more than just the surface level. All in all, I would say that the article is moderately-developed because it includes a lot of important information regarding her life but it still feels like it is lacking in some areas. Furthermore, I would say that the article is underdeveloped due to this, and I think that it can easily become more developed by including more facts and explanations about her life in terms of her career and in terms of her everyday life. With these improvements, I think the article can improve its rating and eventually approach the status of being well-developed.

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

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