User:Arjen.Don/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I chose this article on Analytic philosophy for this evaluation.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article from the C-class articles that were offered through the course. I believe that in the field of communications, a thorough understanding of philosophy is necessary when understanding basic concepts of public relations such as public opinion. My preliminary impression of the article was that of slight confusion, seeing as the article deals with a more complicated and analytic form of philosophical theories than I am personally well versed in.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

I found that the lead section for this particular article was well written and offered a concise summarization of the major points of the article. Seeing as the article is quite lengthy and offers explanations of the many facets of analytic philosophy as well as the philosophers who practiced it, the article does a solid job of keeping the meat of the content clear and accessible to the average visitor. All content in the lead section can be found in the article.

Content

The content, while quite heavy, stays relevant to the topic without going off on tangents or straying from what is important. From what I gathered it is up to date, mentioning emergent forms of analytic philosophy, and no content is present that does not belong.

Tone and Balance

The tone is consistent and didactic throughout, never (from what I observed) straying into a biased delivery. Fringe viewpoints are mentioned and explored briefly, but there is no direct attempt to influence the reader in one way or another.

Sources

The sources and references are extensive and reflect the material presented truthfully. The links I checked worked. Sources are varied and represent many differing viewpoints and range from hundreds of years old to current.

Organization

The article is organized within many headings and subheadings which are easily traversable. No grammatical issues and is written concisely. Writing can be difficult to read to those with no background in philosophy, but that is the nature of the subject.

Images

Only one image is present: a picture of six well-known philosophers. Does not add much to the article aside from acting as a visual aid for relating philosophers to a face. Adheres to copyright regulations. Captioned well. Visually unappealing layout.

Talk Page

The talk page mostly consists of notices of external links being modified, however also contains criticism of the article's content. For example, a question on how Immanuel Kant is related to analytical philosophy.

Overall Impressions

Overall, the article is well crafted, if a bit crowded. At times it can be slightly contradictory in its exact definition of the content. A strength would be its inclusion of the many different forms that analytic philosophy takes and its relatively concise explanations of them. A weakness could be a lack of expansion on certain topics. The article feels well developed, but as a novice to both Wikipedia evaluations and analytic philosophy, it is hard to say.