User:CVHWI/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

 * Second-language acquisition classroom research: (Second-language acquisition classroom research)
 * This article was interesting because it targeted a very specific subtopic about second language acquisition. Due to its specificity, I was curious as to how much detail or information was available.

Lead
The lead begins with a clear definition of the topic but it is short and only offers a vague idea about the contents found therein. Apart from the "contents" box, the major sections in the article are not clearly mentioned. The writer attempts to explain the topic by giving examples of what it is and what it is not. However, after reading further, the article almost seems contradictory, in that the definition in the lead implies a focus opposite of what is covered. For example, according to the definition about the topic in the lead, the article should be concerned with the second language learners rather than the teachers. However, the major sections focus on the teachers' actions. The lead's brevity and lack of clarity seem to offer an explanation as to why the major sections seem vague as well.

Content
The content seems vaguely connected to the general topic. The topic becomes lost in certain sections until the very end when a connection is made back to the overarching topic. The flow seems somewhat awkward as the organization seems somewhat random. In terms of the origin of the information, several sentences offer facts without citing the source. All the sources are at least ten years old, suggesting that this article either lacks information from primary sources or it has not been updated recently.

Tone and Balance
The article has several strongly worded sentences. The largest section of the article seems to be a summary of what 'should' be done according to theory. (This seems problematic as the article is about research but the largest section addresses theories behind teaching.) It seems like the strength of the arguments may come from the original sources, and the language used to address the ideas seems complex. The article also makes several claims that attempt to generalize (access to resources, language learning, etc.) to the "world."

Sources and References
As mentioned before, some sections have very few references or some statements have no source. Whether this is due to a dearth of information about the topic or the organization of the article remains a question. Based on the topic, the references are somewhat connected. They seem related to the big topic "second language acquisition," but not necessarily focused on the research about classroom learning. The links lead to journals that require access in order to read the articles and there are more book reference versus research articles. This is interesting in that, the topic is about research and most research is found in journals. This would imply that most of the references should be from journals.

Organization
The article seemed disorganized. Most sections lacked a topic sentence and connections to the topic were made towards the end of the section. The article would have flowed better if certain sections that were related to each other were next to each other. Some of the sentences came across as circumventing around an idea in attempt to explain. In general, it seemed disjointed and incomplete; either too little information was given about more relevant topics or too much information about irrelevant topics.

Images and Media
There are no images in this article. Maybe if specific strategies studied in research were added to this article, then relevant media or images would be appropriate.

Checking the talk page
There are no conversations on the talk page; however, the article has a rating of B on the quality scale. It is related to the WikiProject Linguistics and supported by the Applied Linguistics Task Force. Due to lack of information about the collaboration process, the brevity of the article, and the use of sources, the quality rating seems very different from expectations based on class discussion.

Overall impressions
This article could benefit from some editing with collaboration to discuss its true purpose. This would help to guide in organization and finding the sources necessary to support the topic. It is an interesting topic, but a very specific topic which may or may not hinder its creation. The major sections are relevant to the topic, but more focus on the "research" seems appropriate as what was in the article either seemed tangential, vague, or incomplete. Overall, it needs more information.

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