User:Bsmit24/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Islamic calligraphy

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

This week we are looking at different Qur'ans (Korans) which include Islamic calligraphy. I first searched for Islamic art but wanted to narrow my focus down to a topic that pertained more closely to this week's discussion. I briefly scrolled through the Islamic art page until I came across a link to the Islamic Calligraphy article. My first impression of the article is that it is lengthy, well organized, neutral, and captures the reader. The headings/titles make it easy to follow and the media that is included makes for an entertaining read.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

For my evaluation I will be going through the article from start to finish using the "rubric" provided above. Starting with the title and introduction it is made clear to the reader what the topic is, Islamic calligraphy, and defines what Islamic calligraphy is explicitly. While the lead section is concise and pertinent to the article, it does not provide an overview of what is in the article and seems to be lacking structure. After the introduction the article's first topic is Instruments and media, which discusses the different tools used in calligraphy and the history of them. After instruments and media, the article goes on to discuss the different styles of calligraphy and their brief history.

The content of the article is up to date (as far as I am aware) and has been recently updated (within the past year). However, without knowing much about Islamic calligraphy, it seems that there is significant information lacking. From my brief knowledge, the Arab world and Islam has a lengthy history, but this article is incredibly short. After reading, I do not feel very informed about Islamic calligraphy, I only feel that I have a brief understanding.

The article does seem neutral and does not seem persuasive at all, following the informative, factual style of Wikipedia.

After a relatively brief glance through the sources listed, some of them seem reliable and others do not. One of the sources is from The Daily Star which is not unbiased or peer reviewed. However, there are also sources such as Blair and Bloom The art and architecture of Islam, and Encyclopedia Britannic which are more reputable than The Daily Star. I did not personally feel that all of the facts were cited throughout the article (however, I did not write the article so I can't say that with 100% certainty). Reading through, I felt that there were some pieces of information that were missing sources.

I also felt that some phrases and sentence structure just felt awkward and not as professional/concise as it could be. There might have been a few small grammatical issues but I would have to check more thoroughly because I do not know the rules of grammar perfectly well. As I said previously though, whether it is a syntax/grammar error or not, some phrasing felt awkward.

The images included in the article are sufficient but not exceptional. I feel that the formatting does not line up with the corresponding part of the article. There isn't a photographic image of each example of calligraphy (so some images could be added). Again, this section is not bad by any means, but it is not exceptional either. I also feel that the captions on some of the photos could be clearer. At first glance, without reading the article, I wasn't sure what I was looking at.

The Talk page shows that this article was nominated but did not receive good article standing in 2014. It seems that the article still is not considered to meet good criteria. This page was being edited also by university students in 2018. Small edits have been made since then, but nothing drastic. It was proposed that this page merge with the Arabic Calligraphy page but that was also denied.

I think this article is poorly developed and I am actually very excited that I found it because I think it would be great for the project we are doing in class. I think the article is lacking information, could have better structure and sources, better media/images, and could simply be improved. The article despite being "poorly" developed, has a good layout and great images. I think the article as it stands now, is a great start to an article. But with more time, data gathering, and compiling/reformatting, this page could be even better.