User:Abbymar1416/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Berndt Museum of Anthropology: Western Australia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
In the instructions for this evaluation assignment it was requested that we choose an article that was closely related to the course content. While looking through all the options, I stumbled across this article. I have always been quite interested in Indigenous history, be it the history of American Indigenous peoples, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, etc. It's truly quite beautiful (albeit fraught with sorrow) and I think that it's important to elevate the level of quality on articles like this one that, in a way, advocatesfor the continuation of cultural history through the spreading of knowledge.

Evaluate the article
Name: Abbymar1416

Date: 01/26/2023

Assignment: Wikipedia Article Evaluation #1

Article: Berndt Museum of Anthropology

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Lead Section:

·       Does the lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article’s topic? Absolutely.

·       Does the lead include a brief description of the article’s major sections? Somewhat.

·       Does the lead include information that is not present in the article? (It shouldn’t.) No.

·       Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed? Concise, if not a smidge lacking.

Evaluation:

-       The lead section of this article is a lovely little summary of what the article is going to be discussing, but it is a bit lacking when it comes to laying out what can be expected in the major sections. For example, the lead section mentions that the museum’s collection contains different types of Aboriginal material culture but fails to mention that the museum has hosted several exhibitions. The lead section has good bones, and is wonderfully concise, but it could be improved by just adding a small snippet regarding exhibitions, be it a few examples or a mention of how many the museum has hosted in its history.

Content:

·       Is the article’s content relevant to the topic? Yes.

·       Is the content up to date? Yes.

·       Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? In my opinion, yes.

·       Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia’s equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics? YES!

Evaluation:

-       The article is very much up to date, and if you look at the edit history, the article was just revised in November of 2022. The information in the article is current, which is nice. Now, in my opinion, I do feel like there is some information missing. The information that I believe would make a great addition to this article could be a section on how this museum’s effort to preserve the material culture of Australian Aboriginal peoples has been received by the public and by living Australian Aboriginal peoples. What impact has it made? Are there talks of repatriation? On the topic of equity gaps, I think this article does a great job in bringing attention to the active efforts to preserve Australian Aboriginal material culture and history through artifacts and through visuals in the form of photographs.

Tone + Balance:

·       Is the article neutral? Overall, yes.

·       Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? No.

·       Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented or underrepresented? Yes.

·       Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such? No, there aren’t any minority/fringe viewpoints mentioned.

·       Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? Not yes, but not no?

Evaluation:

-       Most of the article is written in a neutral tone, but there are small sentences throughout that do laud the efforts of the museum, which I don’t think is a bad thing in this case. It’s not a heavy bias for anything that’s harmful, and it’s just small praise for the museum, which brings a lighter tone to the article. As mentioned above, there aren’t any minority or fringe viewpoints reflected or mentioned in this article, which I think is somewhat of an issue. In an article regarding a museum that is known for its collection of Australian Aboriginal material culture, one would expect to read a sizeable section regarding the opinions of those peoples on their culture being held in a museum. It comes down to a cooperation/repatriation issue. As stated above, there are small sentences that laud the museum’s preservation and educational efforts which do feel like the article is trying to convince the reader that this museum is a haven for Australian Aboriginal artifacts (which isn’t wrong?). It could benefit from adding a contradictory argument to show that there is some level on contention. (Both sides of the coin.)

Sources + References:

·       Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes.

·       Are the sources thorough – i.e. do they reflect the available literature on the topic? Yes.

·       Are the sources current? No.

·       Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible? No.

·       Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? Possibly.

·       Check a few links. Do they work? Yes.

Evaluation:

-       This article is lacking in source material, but I don’t think that this could be 100% chalked up to writer error. I did a quick search for the museum on the internet, and I didn’t find much outside of what was provided in the article, so I can’t speak on whether there would be better sources. There might be some if a more thorough search was conducted. The sources are not super current, but again, I wouldn’t attribute this to writer error. One of the sources that contains a lot of the information shared in the article was written in 2017, which is semi-current, but another reference (“Collections Australia Network”) links to a webpage that displays how the website would have looked in 2009, which is not current at all. There aren’t enough sources where another person is talking about the museum to discuss the diversity of the authors – there’s only one. (There is a “related publications” section, but it looks like they’re all newsletters sent out by the museum.)

Organization and Writing Quality:

·       Is the article well-written – i.e. is it concise, clear, and easy to read? Yes.

·       Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? A few (some of which are my opinion).

·       Is the article well-organized – i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes.

Evaluation:

-       This article is very well-written. The sections are relatively comprehensive, yet concise, and the writer uses accessible language that doesn’t feel exclusive to academics. There are a few grammatical errors, but that may be a matter of my opinion, as I am a supporter of the Oxford comma. The writer of this article does not use the Oxford comma where I would, so it’s a matter of opinion there. Anyway, the article is a nice, easy read that’s quite informative for anyone wanting to learn more about the Berndt Museum of Anthropology. It’s well-organized and it flows quite well; all the sections move into each other, which is nice.

Images + Media:

·       Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? No.

·       Are images well-captioned? N/A.

·       Do all images adhere to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations? Maybe? The image is cited if you click on it.

·       Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? N/A.

Evaluation:

-       This article could benefit from adding some images. That would really give it a boost in the ratings. The article talks at length about the massive Australian Aboriginal material culture collection and the thousands of photographs, yet none of them are included in the article. The only image that is showcased in this article is a user’s photograph of Michelangelo’s statue of David, and the only reason that it is there is because this article has been designated a component of a series on anthropology of the arts. This article is about an anthropology museum in Perth, Western Australia, but the only image on the page is a photograph of a statue in Florence, Italy, and it’s completely unrelated to the subject matter.

Talk Page Discussion:

·       What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? N/A.

·       How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? C-Class / 4 WikiProjects

·       How does the way Wikipedia discuss this topic differ from the way we’ve talked about it in class? I don’t think I understand this question.

Evaluation:

-       The talk page for this article does not exist; a talk page has not been created. It appears that all the work is being done individually and that there has been no contention. The article is rated as a “C-Class, Low-Importance” article, but it is directly tied to four different WikiProjects, all of which I think are quite important topics:

o  WikiProject Australia / Perth / Indigenous peoples / Western Australia

o  WikiProject Anthropology

o  WikiProject Museums

o  WikiProject Archaeology

-       As for the final prompted question, I don’t think I understand what it’s asking, so I am hesitant to put down a definitive response. We haven’t spoken about this topic in class, so I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to make up an answer.

Overall Impressions:

·       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?

Evaluation

-       Overall, I think that this article is well-written. As I said earlier, it has good bones and could easily be expanded upon. The article is concise and easy to read; the flow of the information is seamless. Of course, it could benefit from adding different images (maybe directly linked to the museum website?) and diversifying the voices used to speak about the museum. It would be a cool idea to do some research on how the museum’s efforts have been received by the public, maybe some first impressions of the Berndt family’s involvement in the preservation of Australian Aboriginal history, or how those opinions have changed over the years as there has been a shift in mindset favoring repatriation. This is an objectively important topic, as we (as a society) need to work towards the preservation of Indigenous/Aboriginal histories, and this article deserves to be worked on so that all this information is more easily accessible. It’s a well-developed article – it just needs a bit more information and pizzazz.