User:Banff33/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
African cuisine

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because this class focuses on black foodways, and African cuisine felt like a great starting point to learn some context since I am not as familiar with this cuisine as tohers. Currently, I don't think there is enough exposure to African cuisine globally, especially when you look at how widespread other cuisines are. For example, many other cuisines have fast food chains with thousands of franchises (Chipotle, Panda Express, etc.). To my understanding and experiences, the same is not true for African cuisine, and this matters because it's important to learn about other cuisines.

My preliminary impression: The article is quite short for such a broad topic, but it is well organized into various geographic regions of the African continent. Each geographic region includes a background and examples, often accompanied by images to help readers visualize the foods. There are citations, but not as many as I would imagine there would be for an article about all of African cuisine. Throughout the article, there's a lot of hyperlinks to other Wikipedia pages.

Lead section
Strengths: The lead section is concise and welcoming for readers.

Weaknesses: The introductory sentence does not do the best job of giving readers a preview of what this article will discuss. It can be improved by stating, for example, that African cuisine can be broken down into regions with distinctive traits and history. While the last paragraph (last sentence) of the lead does describe the major sections, it is just listed and not expanded upon. While that may be sufficient for some, I believe readers would benefit from getting a deeper look into what the sections will talk about or perhaps highlighting the biggest differene between the different regions' cuinses.

Content
The most noticeable area that can be improved on is the North Africa and Central Africa segments. It is considerably shorter than the Southern Africa, West Africa, and East Africa segments. Based on my knowledge, all of the content is relevant to the topic. The lead section does mention that this article will talk about the history in addition to actual dishes, preparation techniques, and consumption modes — all of this reigns true throughout the article.

Tone and Balance
The article is neutral in tone and there are no biased statements or opinions.

Sources and References
The majority of sources are current. There are a couple sources that are from the 2000s. If possible, I would suggest finding more up-to-date content to replace what was used before to be more current. That is not to say that content that is up-to-date come from strong sources. There are several source links that are random websites or were permanently deleted and cannot be found to cross check the references. Overall, there needs to be improvement in the sources and references section.

Organization and writing quality
The writing and content is easily digestible, and the article is well organized into sections that make sense. There are no spelling or grammatical errors.

Images and Media
The article includes images that helpp visualize the text and pairs well with the topic. Most of the images are right justified, with only one image that is left justifie — the consistency is visually appealing.

Talk page discussion
The conversations on the talk page are mostly about sources/references and edits to links. It is not an extensive talk page. The article is C-rated and is in WikiProject Food and drink.

Overall impressions
After doing a more thorough review of this article, I agree with the overall status of being a C-rated article. The article's strengths lie in the organizational structure and the support of content with good images that illustrate the variety in African cuisine. The article can be improved by using more up-to-date and academically reviewed sources and references. There can just be more content overall because some of the sections are lacking, and in general, African cuisine is a very large topic with a lot to explore that this article does not do justice. Therefore, I conclude that this article is underdeveloped but has potential.