User:Anxiouspoet/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Prototype theory

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I recently learned about prototype theory and thought it was interesting. The topic is important because it helps us understand the way we classify ideas in language. The Wikipedia entry seems to have some issues with sources and writing style; my initial impression is that it is hard to understand.

Lead Section

 * The first sentence of the lead section is a good identification of the topic, but the rest of the section is hard for the casual reader to understand because of its frequent references to other high-level topics.
 * Half the footnotes in the lead section do not provide adequate bibliographic documentation.
 * The brief explanation of how the theory developed (in the sentence beginning "In formulating prototype theory, Rosch drew in part...") is too much detail for the lead section, in my opinion. Also, this explanation appears nowhere else in the article.

Content

 * The article places the majority of its emphasis on the work of Eleanor Rosch and only briefly (in 1-2 sentences) mentions work done by others (none by name). This might signal missing content, but more research is needed to be sure.
 * The article does not appear to cover the most recent developments on this topic, if there are any.
 * The article seems underdeveloped; it could be a lot more explanatory given the complexity of the topic.

Tone and Balance

 * The article occasionally mentions "problems" or says that something is "problematic" without any citations; it is unclear what it means by this (i.e., whether it is pointing to a hole in the theory, or something the theory is trying to solve). This may indicate a departure from neutrality, or the article might just need more citations and clearer writing.

Sources and References

 * This is one of the largest issues with the article. There are simply not enough in-text citations. The article frequently provides an explanation of a concept without citing a source.

Organization and Writing Quality

 * This is the other major issue with the article. The sections are a bit lopsided, with some sections being very long and some being very short. The material does not seem to justify this. One section contains a long block quote and very little else. One section contains no citations at all. The section headings do not seem to all be on the same level conceptually (i.e., maybe some belong as subheadings under another section).
 * The writing is hard to understand because of the amount of jargon used.

Images and Media

 * There are no images. Maybe some diagrams would help the reader understand the article.

Talk Page Discussion

 * There are several discussions on the talk page, but very few responses.
 * The page was the subject of a course assignment in Fall 2019; most of the talk page suggestions are from before that time, and seem to have been taken into account in the most recent revisions.
 * The article is rated as Start-Class.
 * The article is part of the WikiProject Linguistics and is rated as mid-level importance.
 * The article is supported by the Theoretical Linguistics Task Force, which counts many PhDs among its members.

Overall

 * The article has a solid foundation of work, but needs to be developed more.
 * The most urgent issue (noted at the top of the article) is the lack of inline citations.
 * The organization and writing also need attention, as the article is hard to understand for the general audience.