User:Dolichos/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: Guatemalan Civil War
Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
I chose Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation as my topic for the final group project. U.S counter-insurgency actions in the Guatemalan Civil War was similar to that of WHINSEC in Latin America. By evaluating this article, I am looking forward to learning some of the ways that I can approach writing a topic like this.

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

Overall, the lead provides an extensive overview of the subject matter, and covers almost all the basic information that defines a civil war. On the other hand, I personally think the lead section is proportionally too long for the length of this article. Although it is direct and impactful to include statistics in an introduction, this article tends to overuse this rhetoric device. For example, at the end of the paragraph, the article quoted "Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico" on human rights violation estimate. This is a good way for the readers to understand the human rights aspect of the civil war, and the source is legitimate. But I would argue that it tends to be too trivial for a lead introduction. Again, a good lead ought to find a balance between abstraction and detailed arguments.

It contains four paragraphs, organized chronologically, which is easy for readers to follow. One of my critiques of the organization is that it does not reflect how the rest of the article is structured. For example, a big portion of the body was isolated in discussing Lucas García's presidency, highlighting genocide operations, rural policies and coups during 1981-1982. The importance of this period is implied in the introduction given its length, but the discussion is dispersed throughout three paragraphs. Individual sections are neither explicitly nor discretely represented. It was a hodgepodge of information. Also, the Lead is lacking an introduction to the body sections where foreign involvement is discussed. It

The opening sentence of the Lead appropriately introduced the topic of the article, which is Guatemalan war. However, due to the complexity of the topic, the introductory sentence only captures basic information such as when (the war was fought from 1960-1966), where (Guatemala), and who (between the government and the rebel groups). It could be improved by also briefly stating the why , just like how it is done in the American Civil War article.

Major arguments and facts introduced in the Lead is adequately explicated in the body paragraphs. But there are points that needed to be worked on. Especially the terminal phase of the civil war (e.g. trial of Efraín Montt, "Memoria del Silencio", etc). Again, this could also be fixed by moving these extra information out of the Lead, and be made into its own section.

Content

Guiding question

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

It is hard to determine what is relevant and irrelevant given a broad topic like Guatemalan Civil War. But from my point of view, I do find all contents to be significant to my understanding of the Guatemalan Civil War. As I mentioned in the evaluation for the introduction, I like how it is formatted in a chronological way, and the "Background" section provides contextually critical knowledge and smooths the transition into the central topic.

In terms of the flow, I think the editors did a great job bridging the paragraphs. The ending of each section always lead to the contents of the next, and the subtitles are great summaries of their respective sub-topics as well.

The content is sufficient for readers who intend to make sense of the historical development of the war. However, it could be improved by giving some updates on the contemporary developments that are related to this topic. For example, in 2017, Guatemalan opened the first Holocaust museum in Central America. Or, just like the cover image has shown, modern activities that are associated with the war.

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 of the article is neutral. Most of the writings are factual, and analyses only appear in necessary places. One user that posted on the talk page suggests the opposite, however. I am not an expert on this topic, so there might be more controversies to the sources that the previous editors have chosen. Although the writing itself appears neutral to me.

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

Most of the facts are backed up by reliable sources. But there are places where the editors quoted certain historical figures in English using a secondary source (e.g. in the second paragraph of Escalation of State Power section). Without access to the source itself, I assume that the quote in this case is historically accurate. But it would be helpful to have a Spanish Source that substantiate the legitimacy of the translation. In terms of translation of specific terminologies into English, I think the editors did a great job. A little below in the same section, for example, the English translation of the insurgent organization MANO is backed up by a credible source. My only critique is that the editors should maintain a consistent style of annotation throughout the article. Currently, the terminologies are introduced in either Spanish or English, and sometimes parentheses were used to provide annotation, while relative clauses and other more integrative styles are employed as well.

Additionally, the links works as they should, and the article includes a good range of primary and secondary sources (the newest source is from the 2010s, and it is not missing any particular generations of writings). The secondary sources are well selected, too. They are from a variety of source types--some of them are academic writings, but there are also reports, archives, etc.

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 section titled "Foreign support and involvement" is misleading. It does not cover all the information under this category. Some of the relevant discussions were included in other sections, especially U.S. extensive counterinsurgency and military involvements in the Guatemalan Civil War. Other section titles are also vague. Since the article strictly follows a chronological logic, sections tend to be named with chronologically significant timestamps, some of which might not make sense to ordinary readers. For example, the section that is titled Lucas Garcia Presidency actually spends the most time discussing the apogee of conflicts and massacres. Therefore, instead of highlighting Lucas Garcia, a subtitle that emphasizes conflict might be a better fit. Plus, although one might argue that Garcia is a major actor in the conflicts, the article only gave a one-sentence explanation regarding his role in escalating the tension: "Romeo Lucas Garcia escalated state terror under guise of repressing leftist rebels but in practice was used to murder civilians. This caused an uprising in the city."

Nevertheless, I really like the usage of tables and quotation blocks in the aforementioned section. It concentrates the most significant data into one concise form. The excerpt from El Gráfico is a great contrast and complement to the third person narrative that runs throughout the article.

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

The article has a relatively small collection of pictures that all function differently to enhance the understanding of the topic. Some of them are more traditional supplementary images to the texts, such as the portraits of critical figures that were involved in the war, most of the captioned well. Most of the pictures tend to be neutral, and laid out in a visually acceptable format.

Although I personally feel like the selection could be more inclusive and more extensive. The current illustrative corpus can be roughly divided into two categories--people and maps. Out of the people category, non of the pictures represent Guatemalan figures, a big shortcoming of the selection. The pictures are in some way trivial compare to the texts. The editors should come up with a more impactful way of including images in their writings. Furthermore, some parts of the texts are not supplemented with alternative media, which made certain parts dry and hard to digest.

I am not sure about the cover image. It seems to be a very niche selection (showing indigenous group carrying the bodies of their loved ones after an exhumation in 2012). While it provides emotional depth to the article, it only provides a certain perspective and does not represent the Civil War as a whole. Again, using American Civil War as an example, a collage would be more appropriate.

Overall, the use of images are decently effective in this article, but there is big room for improvement.

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

One particular user challenges the sources. Other than that, the talk page is not particularly active and most of the talks are concern about housekeeping issues.

This article is rated a C-Class article, and belongs to two WikiProjects--Guatemala and Military History.

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

The article is close to being complete. Even though different stages and aspects of the topic was covered with varying degrees of clarity, the article as a whole is not significant lacking in terms of coverage or depth. One major strength of the article is its flow. As mentioned above, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth and individual sections all follows a chronological logic, which is particularly apposite for a historical article like this. It is also helpful that the subtitles for individual sections indicate the section's position on the timeline in one way or another.

The major pitfall of the article is the unfriendly reading experience, which I believe can be resolved by adding more relevant images and moving some of the trivial information in the Lead to other body sections.

Optional activity

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