User:Belladonna Night/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Taraxacum officinale - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The reason why I chose to evaluate the "Taraxacum officinale," article is because not only is it a common flowering plant in America but may people don't realize how beneficial this plant can be - including me. For the longest time, I assumed that dandelions were pesky weeds but in reality dandelions are more than that. They can be used for herbal medicines and can even be beneficial in our foods. In addition to this, it is also important for people to know that when it comes to agriculture this plant can be more helpfully than some would think because it serves as an indicator plant for potassium and calcium within soil. On top of this, it is also important for people to know that even though we don't like to see these weeds in our yards, they are super important to wildlife around us such as honey bees, caterpillars and some butterflies as well as moths.

Evaluate the article
Lead Sections:


 * 1) Within the lead section of this article, it does provide an introductory sentence that is clear and concise in what the topic of this article is about. Once I read the sentence, I not only knew that I was going to be reading about dandelions but I was also given the family, genus and species name.
 * 2) The lead does include a brief description of some of the articles major sections. From the description, I knew that this article was going to go over a more in depth description of the dandelion, the taxonomy, ecology, and uses of the plant. However, I didn't get the impression it was going to go over the fossil record, etymology or taraxalisin aspects of the plant.
 * 3) For the most part everything within the lead was present throughout the article such as the fact that dandelions can be used for food and herbal medicine as well as where it is located. However, the one thing that was present within the lead that I didn't notice within the article was the facts about the flower heads and how there are called "clocks" or "blowball" in American English and British.
 * 4) Overall, I feel as though the lead is clear and concise and gives you a good introduction to what you will be reading later on in the article without going to much into detail about those topics.

Content:


 * 1) I feel as though the articles content (description of the plant, taxonomy, Ecology, fossil recorded, Uses of the plant, etymology and taraxalisin) is relevant to the topic since it its discussing certain aspects of dandelions.
 * 2) This article is up to date since the last time it was edited was the 16th of September, 2021.
 * 3) The content provided is not missing anything and it all belongs within the article.
 * 4) The article covers some historically underrepresented topics. For instance, it goes in relatively in depth on the culinary uses of dandelions and touches the medicinal uses of this plant which is not well known as well as the agricultural benefits of dandelions. As mentioned before, many people believe that dandelions are useless and pesky weeds.

Tone and Balance:


 * 1) The article is neutral.
 * 2) There are no biased claims noticeable within the article.
 * 3) The viewpoint of the herbal medicine could be have more information provided such as examples on how dandelions are used in traditional medicines within Europe, North America and China.
 * 4) When it comes to fringe viewpoints, the article does have a few in which it mentions medicinal uses of dandelions but does not provide any examples or go into to much depth of how they are used and the benefits of dandelion. If there isn't much information on this topic, it should be noted in the article.
 * No, I do not believe that the article try's to persuade anyone one way or another about the topic of dandelions.

Sources and References:


 * 1) Yes, all facts seem to be backed up by a reliable source (every sentence or so it seems).
 * 2) Yes, all the sources are thorough and they even provided additional reading sources.
 * 3) Many of the sources date back to the 1900s, however there is sources that are current that are mostly within the 2000s.
 * 4) Yes, the sources are by many different people including historical sources.
 * 5) When it comes to the sources that are from other websites and even reference guides or the Almanac, I am sure there are peer reviewed journals that can cover those topics. However, from the looks of it, it seems as though the sources a reliable and come from trustworthy sources.
 * 6) Yes, the links work.

Organization and Writing Quality:


 * 1) Yes, the article is well written.
 * 2) The article does not have an grammatical or spelling errors from what I read.
 * 3) Yes, the article is broken down into the major sections that cover the topic of dandelions.

Images and Media:


 * 1) Yes the article includes images within most of the major sections that help with the understanding of the topic.
 * 2) Yes each of the images within the article are well captioned.
 * 3) Yes, the images within the article are uploaded by others
 * 4) The only image that seems in the way is image of the Dandelion flower and the ripe fruits of the plant under the Taxonomy section. They could've put the image underneath all the text so it was cutting into the text so much. Other than that, the other images are laid out in a visually appealing way.

Overall Impressions:


 * 1) The overall status of the article is that it is in High-important and has been rated as a C-class on the quality scale.
 * 2) I feel as though the article's strengths fall under the description of the dandelion, taxonomy, and ecology topics. On top of this, I think the article has a good amount of images that are not overwhelming to the reader. Lastly, there is a good amount of reliable and current sources being used within the article.
 * 3) The article should improve in the areas of Uses, especially when it comes to medicinal uses. On top of this, I think the section of Taraxalisin could either be more developed or deleted as there isn't as much relevant information as the other major sections of the article.
 * 4) The article could be developed more, especially in the areas of uses.