User:CAPam30/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?

Leaders' debate

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I thought the article looked interesting, as it addresses a form of communication in the political sphere. I am intrigued by political processes, and so this caught my attention. I also think that it is important for people to understand the political process of the debates, and how why they are relevant to them, so that citizens can become better contributors to society. Hopefully in my analysis of the article, I can provide insight as to how to better inform the public of the role of political debate. My first impression of the article was that it seemed rather basic and rudimentary, particularly because it was not very long and lacks resources. As I read it, I could tell it seemed like a decent article, but could use refinement of the information it gave and still needed more credible citations.

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.)

Lead Section

The Lead Section does a good job of giving you a decent understanding of the topic of the page. The first sentence is a good definition of the topic. However, the section does not provide an outline of what the rest of the article will talk about. It offers a few random details that are helpful, but not discussed in any further depth later in the article. It does not provide any summary of the major sections. The section is brief and concise, but the information does not prepare the reader for the rest of the article.

Content

Overall, the article provides a very general overview of leadership debates without going into too much detail of how specific countries do their own debates. It touches on a few small points with certain countries, but does not offer full explanations of their similarities or differences. It focuses only on the history and general format of the debates, and provides a list of countries that do some sort of leadership debate in their electoral processes. All of the information is relevant to the topic. The content appears to be up to date, but could use some more recent examples of leadership debates to demonstrate its relevancy in today's politics and illustrate different formats. I believe the article should have additional sections focusing on primary debate format alternatives and debate techniques used throughout the years. I do not think it is dealing with a Wikipedia content gap nor any type of underrepresented population, as it is providing a simple explanation of the debates in the electoral process.

Tone and Balance

Overall the article does a great job of maintaining a neutral tone throughout. It is not promoting one side or position any more than another, and does not highlight any political party or candidate. It does only focus on the positive side of the debates however, and a valuable section could discuss the controversies or arguments against the leadership debates. This would offer both sides of the coin for readers. That being said, the article as a whole does not seem to be actively promoting the debates, it only references how they became a popular method of the campaign process.

Sources and References

This is probably the weakest point of the article. There are five citations total, and each only covers a small detail included in the article. The bulk of the article's information in the 'History' and 'Format' sections have no supporting citations, and has enough pieces of information that would require a host of references. Some of the sources that are included are ten to fifteen years old, and come from local newspapers or forums. Some of the links are no longer functional. In short, more legitimate references should be found and cited for the entirety of the article to improve legitimacy and credibility.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is generally well organized and broken into sensible sections. There are some places where grammar and writing style should be more professional. It has a host of run-on sentences that should be broken up to make more sense. It is clear that the article needs proof-reading and refinement to make it a more professional article, with errors primarily in the 'Format' section.

Images and Media

There is only one image on the page of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in a 1960 presidential debate. The use of the image follows copyright laws as it is listed under Public Domain. It is located in a good spot on the article, next to the introduction and history sections which explicitly mention that debate. The caption is great and the image gives a good visual for the topic. Additional images of more modern debates and the different leadership debate formats would be helpful in illustrating how they work.

Talk Page Discussion

This article is rated as a Start-Class article, and is a part of the WikiProject Elections and Referendums, as well as WikiProject Politics. Both of these Wiki projects are aimed at increasing the number and quality of pages covering politics and elections on Wikipedia. It is rated as Low-importance on the WikiProject Politics' importance scale. There are no conversations taking place on the talk page.

Overall Impressions

In general, the article is still in its beginning phases and needs some fairly significant growth and refinement. It does a good job of laying out a general framework for the history and format of leadership debates, and includes a few examples from countries around the world. It needs a lot more information detailing different formats and debate styles, or primary styles used throughout history. It lacks credible references and needs to add citations to most of the facts described in the article. Overall, it is a good start but is an underdeveloped page.