User:Ayang26/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Hmong textile art)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because it covers the traditional textile art of my culture which is the Hmong culture. I had a good impression of it and thought it did well in summing up the most important parts of what someone who is unfamiliar with the topic should know.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead section: I thought the lead section did a very excellent job in being concise while giving an overview of the other subtopics in the rest of the article. I thought it was helpful that a link to a Wikipedia page on the Hmong people was provided in case audiences were not familiar with that ethnic group. I think the first paragraph provides a sufficient definition of what Hmong textile art is and elaborates this definition in the next sentence with specific examples which foreshadow the rest of the article's content.

Content: The content was relevant to the topics foreshadowed in the lead section. The length and the extent of detail of each topic in the article seemed relatively similar with none of the them being better fleshed out than the others. I found it helpful that when referencing textile-making techniques, links were provided to external Wikipedia pages that gave more detailed information about what that technique was and how it was used. Examples of textile-making techniques that had links to other Wikipedia pages include batik and applique.

Tone and balance: Most of the article has a neutral tone and only provides factual information. The only section that slightly hints at a biased interpretation is in the "Symbolism and Language" section where the last sentence of the paragraph is worded in a way that suggests that there is a consensus that Paj Ntaub has no deeper meaning than its symbolic representation. Although in that same sentence, it does acknowledge the existence of hidden meaning in Paj Ntaub.

Sources and references: Though a majority of the sources come from legitimate publications and journals, some of the sources that are listed do include official websites and a press release (online magazine), which could potentially be considered biased. I personally think it is more nuanced to determine whether these are good sources or not considering that the information provided by the actual people of that ethnic group or those living in close proximity may be deemed "un-legitimate" only because they are not "academic" or have not been reviewed by someone with credentials. I would say the names of the the reference material authors are predominantly western appearing or sounding. Again, this poses the question of whether using outside observations can be deemed more legitimate than information from the actual people who the content of the article belongs to.

Organization and writing quality: I thought the overall grammar, and sentence structures were very concise and easy to read. The level of detail in describing the textile-making methods and processes was also excellent. I could see it being helpful for audiences who are not familiar or have never seen the textile making methods/processes.

Images and media: The images were fitting to the topics of the article though I wish instead of having two images of nearly identical story cloths that one of them could be replaced with an image of traditional motifs and symbols seen on Hmong textile which would better illustrate the last sentence of the "Symbolism and Language" section of the article. The images are well-captioned and provide helpful visual imagery for the content that the article describes.

Talk page discussion: From the talk page, I observed that many contributions to the article were made by an author who was part of an academic group and WikiProject focusing on textile arts. There isn't much discussion on the talk page a part from revisions.

Overall impression: I had a pretty good impression on the article overall. I thought it covered the most important points of what someone would need to know about Hmong textile art with detail yet being concise and easy to understand. I especially appreciate how the article mentions the socioeconomic significance behind Hmong textile arts. Though the article delves into the origins of Paj Ntaub and its impact on modern Hmong-Americans, I do wish it would have talked more about the important role that Hmong textile arts play in religion such as funeral practices considering that it is a very important part of Hmong culture. Overall, I thought that this article was a good introductory to the topic.