User:Georgive/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: Battle of Réunion
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
  • I chose this article from a list of C-class articles. I also saw that this page was related to French Africa, so I thought it was relevant to the course of African Politics.

Lead

Guiding questions

• Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
  • Yes, since the article is about a battle, the introductory sentence briefly explains the outcome of the battle and its significance.
• Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
  • The Lead lacks any of the background context listed in the Background section of the article. It also only contains brief information from the Invasion section (only listing the name of the destroyer involved in the attack). Strangely, the article includes "aftermath information" (essentially stating that the battle resulted in the Vichy French regime being replaced by the Free French administration) that is present in the Lead but is not found in the actual "Aftermath" section.
• Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
  • Yes, we see this phenomenon with the "aftermath information" of the battle being stated in the Lead, but not actually being present throughout the rest of the article.
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?
  • The Lead is very concise in the sense that it only contains two sentences and lacks brief descriptions of the major sections of the article.

Content

Guiding questions

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • Yes, the article touches on the major facets of the Battle of Reunion and does not contain superfluous information.
• Is the content up-to-date?
  • Based on the fact that the article is about a battle that happened in the mid-20th century and does seem to be the center of ongoing contemporary debate, the content of the article appears to be up-to-date.
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
  • No, all of the content of the article appears relevant to the subject.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

• Is the article neutral?
  • Yes, the voice of the article does contain bias towards either the Allied or the Axis belligerents of this battle.
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
  • No, all of the information of the article seems to just present explicit facts.
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
  • No, the article does a good job of outlining the experiences of both the Free France and the Vichy France belligerents in this battle.
• Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?
  • No, the article does not take upon an argumentative stance at all.

Sources and References

Guiding questions

• Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
  • The vast majority of facts in this article are not cited, with there only being two footnotes in the entire article.
• Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
  • The two listed sources are very limited- they are both historical articles written by a French museum on two military officials involved with the battle. Collectively, these two articles only contain a minority of the content of the Wikipedia page, meaning that the Battle of Reunion article is substantially un-cited. I am sure that there is more literature available on the subject of the Battle of the Reunion, but the article does not appear to cite any of those other works.
• Are the sources current?
  • No- both links require that they are used through "Internet Archive: Wayback Machine," meaning that they have been deleted and must be retrieved through an additional website to be accessed. One article last updated in 2001, and the other was last updated in 2004.
• Check a few links. Do they work?
  • Only if accessed via the Internet Archive website link. The original sites have been deleted by the Museum of the Order of the Liberation, the museum that originally uploaded the articles.

Organization

Guiding questions

• Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
  • Yes, it is very clear and easy to comprehend.
• Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
  • No, there are no grammatical/spelling errors. It's interesting because you can tell that the major editor of the article is a non-American writer based off of the ways that certain words are spelled (for example: materialised instead of materialized).
• Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?
  • Yes, the major sections of the article are organized in a logical manner given that the article is about a military battle (e.g., having the first section as Background and the last section as Aftermath).

Images and Media

Guiding questions

• Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
  • Yes, the article includes a map of La Reunion, a photo of the Leopard, a photo of French sailors on the Leopard, and a Banknote with a depicted image of the Leopard. Each photo helps to accentuate the visual and geographic understanding of the battle for the reader.
• Are images well-captioned?
  • Yes- the images themselves are not difficult to understand and do not require extensive context.
• Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
  • Yes, they are all images that are in the public domain and do not violate any of Wikipedia's copyright regulations.
• Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?
  • Yes, they are evenly spread out throughout 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?
  • There only appears to be two comments under the Talk page of this article. One comment questions factual accuracies in the article (clarifying that the island of La Reunion was never actually occupied and never "liberated"), while the other mentions a date error in the article.
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
  • The article is rated as C-class and is in the WikiProjects of "Military history," "Africa/French Africa," "France," and "Overseas France."
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
  • We have not touched on this subject in class before, but the talk page raises an interesting concern about the language of victory and whether it creates a bias when we refer to certain military battles as "invasions."

Overall impressions

Guiding questions

• What is the article's overall status?
  • The article can be classified under the "start-class" classification. The Background and Invasion sections of the article are well-developed, but the Start and Aftermath sections have much work to do. The Aftermath section, in particular, requires additional research.
• What are the article's strengths?
  • The article is very concise and easy to understand. It provides a basic framework for understanding the history and the tactics of the Battle of Reunion.
• How can the article be improved?
  • The article can be improved with further research- this includes looking for more recent scholarship on this battle, and actually citing this research in the article.
• How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?
  • This article is about half-way done when it comes to completeness. Its research on the battle's background information and information on the battle itself are thorough, but the overall consequences of the battle are lacking.

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

with four tildes — ~~~~

• Link to feedback: Talk:Battle of Réunion#Lack of Thorough Sources