User:Hadleyggeorgetown/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.

• Gender discrimination in the medical profession: (Gender discrimination in the medical profession)
• This was an article edited by students who took this course last year and provided to us as an option by our professor. I chose this one specifically because as I consider entering the medical field in my future as a female, I would be interested to know what forms of gender discrimination I may be facing.

Lead

Guiding questions

• Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
  • Yes, it has an introductory sentence that briefly addresses gender discrimination specific to female clinicians.
• Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
  • It hits on some of the article's major sections but it does not touch on all of them. For example, women in medicine and the wage gap are major sections of the article but are not addressed specifically in the Lead.
• Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
  • No, everything in the Lead is touched on in some way in the article.
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?
  • The lead is concise and brief, perhaps almost too much so.

Lead evaluation

The Lead has a good introductory sentence that provides an overview of the article's topic. The rest of the Lead succeeds for the most part in providing a brief description of the article's major sections but does not address all of them. Everything included in the Lead is present in the article and as a whole, the Lead is concise.

Content

Guiding questions

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • Yes.
• Is the content up-to-date?
  • Yes, updated statistics from 2017 on the wage gap are included.
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
  • The Women in Leadership section only covers cardiovascular medicine.

Content evaluation

The content of this article is overall relevant to the topic of gender discrimination in medicine. The content is also up to date, with statistics included from 2017 and 2018 in some parts. There are some areas where content could be updated, such as in the cardiovascular medicine section that reports the proportion of female cardiologists in 2015, but for the most part is it not out-dated. I noticed that the major section "Women in Leadership" only has one subsection of "cardiovascular medicine", which is great in terms of that specific field but there is missing information for all other areas of leadership in medicine. Some more general information is included under this subsection, which seems misplaced and poorly organized.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

• Is the article neutral?
  • Yes, statements are backed up with facts for the most part.
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
  • Yes.
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
  • No.
• Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?
  • It doesn't necessary use persuasive language, but the facts are laid out clearly and with enough evidence that it's difficult to refute the presence of gender discrimination after reading.

Tone and balance evaluation

Overall the tone was quite neutral, with most statements backed up with irrefutable facts. Claims for the most part seemed unbiased and the article did not seem to be pushing the reader in one direction strongly over another, although the facts are laid out clearly and with enough evidence that it's difficult to refute the presence of gender discrimination after reading. The phrase "This is concerning because" is used following a fact about discrimination faced by male nurses, which seemed a little out of place -- perhaps it should have been phrased "This is concerning to members of the medical community" or something else so it doesn't sound like it's coming from the author of the sentence's perspective.

Sources and References

Guiding questions

• Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
  • No. Ex. The Huffington Post, minoritynurse.com
• Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
  • No
• Are the sources current?
  • Some are.
• Check a few links. Do they work?
  • Yes, I tested five links and they all worked.

Not all of the facts in the article are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information (one even had "citation needed" where there should have been a reference). Some of the sources were random news articles or independent blogs or websites. There were some reliable literature reviews cited, but not all of the references were up to par. Some of the sources were current, with a few literature reviews I clicked on having been published in the past ten years. The links I checked were working. Overall, the sources and references are okay, but some of them did not qualify as reliable secondary sources of information.

Organization

Guiding questions

• Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
  • Yes, for the most part. Not as concise as it could be in some sections - ex. Gender roles section.
• Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
  • Not noticed.
• Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?
  • Other than the Women in Leadership section, yes, I think it's fine.

Organization evaluation

Overall, the article is well-written. It is easy to read and does not use overly complicated language. In some areas it could be a bit more concise or includes more details than necessary from a single study, an example of which is the second paragraph of the Gender Roles section. No major grammatical or spelling errors were noticed, although sentence structure was sometimes a bit awkward. The article was clearly divided and organized into major sections. Other than the issue previously noted about everything in the "Women in Leadership" section being grouped under the sub-header "Cardiovascular medicine" even when it was general information, there didn't seem to be any major organizational issues.

Images and Media

Guiding questions

• Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
  • Only three images were included. None of them necessarily enhance understanding of the topic, but they do tie into the topic.
• Are images well-captioned?
  • Yes, the captions make it clear what is being shown.
• Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
  • Yes
• Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?
  • Not particularly.

Images and media evaluation

Only three images were included on this Wikipedia page. Two are portraits of women of note in the medical field and one is a sketch of Geneva Medical College, where Elizabeth Blackwell graduated. The images are well-captioned and address what is being featured clearly. They do seem to adhere to copyright regulations. They are not laid out in a particularly visually appealing way, all three are just on the right side of the page and not well spaced out.

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?
  • Part of WikiProjects: Feminism, Medicine, Women's Health. It's Rated B-Class for all 3.
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
  • We haven't covered this topic that much in class so far, this page does not address race, specifically women of color in medicine, which is noted by someone on the Talk page as worth adding more info on.

Talk page evaluation

The talk page is not very active. Someone commented about changing the title to its current iteration back in October 2019, providing reasons why they thought "Gender discrimination in medicine" was more fitting. They seemed to receive no pushback and went ahead and did it. It looks like someone also advised adding some things to "Healthcare providers" (which is no longer a section and must have been broken up into "male clinicians" and "female clinicians"), which was well received. The article is rated B-Class and is part of the following WikiProjects: Feminism, Medicine, Women's Health. We haven't covered this topic that much in class so far, this page does not address race, specifically women of color in medicine, which is noted by someone on the Talk page as worth adding more info on.

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 B-class. It is overall a good article and has strengths in its consideration of discrimination faced by both genders and some strong references and statistics. Additionally it is fairly updated and content is recent, which is good. Some weaker references are something that could be improved, as is the organization of the different sections (most specifically the Women in Leadership section). A thorough editing to make sure all paragraphs are concise and comprehensive would also benefit this article. The article is not necessarily poorly developed but could use some work to become 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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