User:Brian S Liu/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: Education in India
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. Education in India is a broad article that includes the topic of public-private partnerships in urban schools in India. Other Wikipedia pages that mention public-private partnerships are not specific enough to education in India.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * 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 lead for Education in India summarizes some major parts of the article, but does so in an imbalanced way. The first sentence and paragraph focus on the means and bureaucracy of schooling, whereas from the title of the article, one would expect to start with a student's experience. This is unfortunately a norm in many Wikipedia pages about education in a certain region. The lead also contains dense statistics and cites various reports, instead of summarizing them.

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
Information is mostly relevant and up-to-date. However, much of the content can be polished. The history section is focused on early history. Considering that "History of education in the India subcontinent" has its own Wikipedia page, not much elaboration is needed, but it is missing history from the early common era until now. The extracurricular activities section consists of only one sentence. Under the section on Issues, the "Curriculum issues" subsection cites most of its sources from non-academic sources and can be greatly expanded. In the same section there is a subsection on "Rural education," but despite the prominence of issues in rural education, there is a different set of issues in education for the urban poor that is neglected. It also doesn't mention NGO initiatives under the section about Initiatives.

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
The article draws many statistics from reports, and when available, includes opposing statistics. It balances coverage of already-made improvements with progress yet to be made. However, it doesn't go into depth on debated topics such as medium of education and certain types of intervention. The section on history, as mentioned earlier, is missing later history, which might be taken by some to signify a bias. The article does a good job of covering certain issues such as women and rural education, but the rest of the issues are mostly select, neglecting issues such as education for disabled children. However, the article is quite long already, which might explain the lack of representation of certain issues. One solution is that the section could be expanded upon in another page. Overall, the article doesn't show much bias, but can be more even in its coverage of topics.

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
The article does not cite many sources for the "Hi"story" section, for the "Levels of schooling" subsection, except for "Primary education," for the 4th paragraph under the "Tertiary education" subsection, and under the "Central Government expenditure on education" subsection. Furthermore, some links don't work, some citations are faulty, and many are from news sites. However, there are citations of reports and academic research, and they are mostly current.

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
The article is not easy to read or follow. It is not concise - many sections are dense with statistics and can be expanded in their own Wikipedia articles, and many statistics are cited in the lead, which gives a very cluttered impression. Its organization needs improvement, and sections on "Open and distance learning" and "Extracurricular activities" have little content and could be merged into other sections. Spelling errors include one occurrence of "enrol" instead of "enroll," and "madarsa" instead of "madrasa," writing style is somewhat inconsistent, including variation between "madrasah" and "madrasa," varied spacing between parenthesis and the text enclosed, and varying capitalization.

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
The article includes images that are captioned to identify them. They do not always enhance understanding, but rather provide examples for the content of the text, and are well laid out in certain sections. They could be better used to enhance understanding, such as the creation of diagrams to illustrate paths of education. I am uncertain about whether the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. Some of the images include people and I am not sure how to check if all guidelines were followed.

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
There is very little talk on the Talk page besides bots. There are ignored conversations about language and medium of education in India, and the most prominent user-to-user conversation is, with however good intentions, revolves around interpretations of Wikipedia guidelines. The article is rated B-class, of High-importance, but there have not been much productive discussion.

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
The article has a lot of content, most of which is well-cited, and includes a lot of statistics. However, sometimes the presentation of such statistics and related information can be made much more concise. Although edits have made it relatively neutral, there is an imbalanced coverage of topics, and the organization does not reflect a balance either. The article is on track to being well-developed, but needs a lot of polishing.

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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 * Link to feedback: Talk:Education in India