User:Billyboffman/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Baroque painting
 * I have chosen to evaluate the article on Baroque Painting because it is an area of real interest to me. I also chose it because I know it is a broad topic and I wanted to evaluate how a topic like that gets written about on Wikipedia.

Lead

 * Guiding question


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
the introductory sentence of the lead is short and matter of fact. while it does say the topic of the article it doesn't do much to describe it. The rest of the lead is fairly long and and I felt lost by the end of it. There is information in the lead about certain artist's style and technique that would better fit in the "National Variations" section. overall the lead was too long and too detailed. It could have been made shorter and divided the information among the content sections.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation
I think that in this article the content section suffers because the lead is so long and goes into so much detail. The written sections of "History" and "National Variation" are short but effective in their information. I think the National Variations section was good and displayed the varying styles with Baroque throughout Europe. Something in the content section that was done well was the list of multiple Baroque painters who were organized by country of origin, as well as a gallery at the bottom of the page of notable Baroque paintings by various artists.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
In the lead section there is a claim made that is biased or at least an opinion not supported by facts. It makes the claim that artists such as Carvaggio, Rembrant, Velazquez, and Rubens were "the greatest painter of the Baroque period". While this may be a widely upheld idea among art historians and art lovers, it is still an opinion statement.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
All the Images in this article are cited properly with links to both the artist and the museum or collection it resides in now. Other links within the article to related topics all work and are placed in helpful parts of the writing. Considering how large the topic of Baroque painting is the reference and readings section at the end was shorter than I expected it to be.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
Overall, I think that there is a lot of great and useful information in this article. However, I struggle with the organization of it. The lead section is too long and should be divied up to fill the other sections in the content.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
I think the use of images in this article was very good. They all seemed to be properly cited to Wikipedia standards and were helpful in visualizing the description of Baroque painting.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
the talk page of this article is not very extensive but is dealing mostly with how to talk about the religious aspect of Baroque painting. This page also seems to be apart of the Wikiprojects Visual Arts

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
I think the article could be improved through better organization as well as adding more history and contextual information about the religious conflict that is mentioned in the lead.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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