User:Briyannaw/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

 * Name of article: Pragmatics
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate: I chose this article to evaluate because I am currently enrolled in my first pragmatics class. I thought that I could bring a fresh perspective in evaluating this article as I am a student learning about this information. At the same time, I thought it would good to soak up some of the information already on the Wiki page and within the sources to get a better understanding of the class.

Lead

 * Lead evaluation
 * The lead does include a introductory sentence that describes the topic clearly. However, It does not clearly include descriptions of the major sections, but tries to intertwine the sections within the overall definition of pragmatics. There is no information present in the lead that is not present in the article. I think that overall, the lead is not clear enough. It is overly detailed and gives a very wordy definition of the subject of pragmatics. To make the lead more concise, it should include a broad definition or overview of pragmatics and then go on to describe the upcoming sections in the article that will help readers understand pragmatics.

Content evaluation
The article's content is relevant to the topic because it helps readers get a better understanding of what pragmatics is and it seems to be up to date on the overall meaning of pragmatics. I think that if I had to remove any of the content though, it would be information that spirals too much into other subjects. For example, the section "In Literary Theory" seems to be excessive. While it may relate to pragmatics, it is not necessary in the article and could perhaps go under the "see also" section for readers interested in more about that topic.

Tone and balance evaluation
While the purpose of this article is to inform, there is still good neutrality in this article specifically with the section titled "formalization" which includes the discussion on pragmatics versus semantics. I don't think that are any biased claims or that the article is trying to persuade the reader in one position. I think that the article is conveying the information and leaves it up to the reader to make that pragmatics/semantics call. Semantics might be a little underrepresented, however it is an article on PRAGMATICS and perhaps the reader would find more representation in a semantics article for a follow up.

Sources and references evaluation
From what I read in the article, every fact seemed to be supported by a source, which was marked with a footnote that took you down to the source under the "References" section. The oldest source that I saw from the list was from 1990 as far as journals/websites go, but there were some books mentioned that were older than that. The links that I clicked on all worked and were thorough enough to be used as reliable evidence for this article.

Organization evaluation
There is not much to evaluate here because I believe that the article is organized in a good fashion. There are clearly labeled sections with subheadings, bolded words with links to other articles, bullet point usage for precision, etc. While reading the article, I don't notice any spelling errors or ungrammaticality.

Images and media evaluation
There is only one graphic in the entire article that depicts the "six functions of language". While I think that is a good graphic to include in this pragmatics article, it's not complete and thus negates the entire point of including it. For example, the caption literally says "To each one corresponds a communication function (NOT displayed in this picture)". It seems pointless to include a graphic if key information is not going to be shown in it- especially if it's referenced in the text. Formality wise, the picture is in compliance of copyright regulations and it is visually appealing with the usage of bright/neon colors and arrows for the reader to understand the flow of the graphic.

Talk page evaluation
There is some good comments/dialogue on the talk page. The article is Rated C-class and includes high-importance, top-importance, and mid-importance. Furthermore, it is a part of the Psychology, Philosophy, Linguistics, and Education WikiProjects. So far, I think that Wikipedia goes much more into depth on the topic than we have so far and it also links it to other different subjects such as anthropology, sociology, etc.

Overall evaluation
Overall, I think that this is a solid informative article. The strengths of this article is that it explains everything surrounding pragmatics. While this is a strength, I think that the article can also improve in this area as there are different sections in which it can be more concise, less wordy and to the point of the definition. Additionally, the article can include more graphics to give readers a visual along with the text. With this being said, I would still say that it is well-developed because it achieves that purpose of being informative.