User:AveryEStewart/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I'm evaluating Faravahar.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I was initially drawn to this topic because I'm interested in Zoroastrianism. As I started reading about Faravahar, however, I noticed that the article seems a bit incomplete and unpolished toward the end, and especially in the last few paragraphs, there is quite a bit of uncited material. Faravahar seems like it would be a central concept in discussions of the medieval Middle East, yet this page is somewhat poorly written.

Evaluate the article
The lead section is concise, with a suitable topic sentence that orients the reader to the article. It doesn't contain any extraneous information. Although there is an outline, there is no brief description of the article's main sections.

All content that is present seems to be relevant, although I feel that more could be added to fully flesh out this article. It's mostly up-to-date, as there is not much recent scholarship on the Faravahar. However, a Google Scholar search yielded a 2014 book, Reclaiming the Faravahar by Navid Fozi, discussing the meaning of the Faravahar in recent Zoroastrian identity, which I noticed was not cited in the Wikipedia article. There are a number of conflicting and overlapping interpretations of this symbol's meaning, and it seems that the author gives equal weight to each with a neutral tone. However, I feel it would be appropriate to reference Fozi's contribution as well.

It seems that some statements cite sources which don't actually support that statement -- like this piece in the Times of Israel, cited after the phrase, "...it is commonly believed that the Faravahar serves as a Zoroastrian depiction of the fravashi, or personal spirit." Additionally, there are several facts for which sources are not cited. However, this article does draw on a variety of scholarly and journalistic sources, including encyclopedia entries and scholarly journal articles. Furthermore, sources reflect the relevant body of work.

The article is well-written and grammatically correct. The organization is simple, but I think that the history of the symbol should have been separated into a separate section from interpretations of the symbol's meaning. Additionally, I noticed one sentence which didn't read very professionally: "From the start of the 20th century, the faravahar icon found itself in public places and became a known icon among Iranians." The phrase "found itself" seems out of place in academic writing.

Images are chosen, placed, and captioned well. They all seem to follow copyright guidelines.

The talk page shows that this article is part of four WikiProjects: WikiProject Zoroastrianism, WikiProject Iran, WikiProject Assyria, and WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology. There is some (rather heated) debate on the talk page about several subjects. Most of it is insubstantial and not defended well. There is some debate about the spelling of "faravahar," as well as the status of the faravahar as a national symbol. It looks like most of the issues that were raised were later resolved in the article.

Overall, the article is concise and easily digestible. It addresses the primary elements of the Faravahar symbol without favoring any one interpretation over another. However, it is only partly developed and could still use elaboration on the Faravahar's origins, the history of where it appeared, and its relevance to other pre-Islamic symbols. It also needs citations for a number of facts.