User:CatherineGinn2023/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: Matchmaking
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate

My partner and I went through the list of assigned articles independently before deciding which article we wanted to evaluate and, eventually, edit. Through this process we found that we both found the topic of matchmaking to be very interesting and decided that this was the article we wanted to work on.

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?

This article does include a Lead, however, the lead is solely comprised of the definition of the word matchmaking (which appears to have just been copied and pasted from a dictionary of some sort, though it is lacking any sort of citation). Because of this, the Lead includes some information about other, non-romantic/marital methods in which matchmaking is utilized.

My partner and I have agreed that we should completely rewrite this article's Lead, so that it includes more information, but does not introduce any non-related/non-relevant topics (we are also thinking about creating preliminary (meaning they will need to be written and edited by someone else) articles for any non-relevant topics (such as matchmaking in business and boxing)).

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?

The verbal content of this article, though not very well organized and heavily lacking in detailed description and information, seems, thus far, to be relevant to the topic (other than the "Other Uses" section, which we hope to expand, at least somewhat, and form into the beginning of a separate preliminary article (described above).

Of the six sources listed in the "References" section, five are more than a decade old, so they most certainly are not as up-to-date as we need them to be. And all items listed in the "See Also" section are links to other Wikipedia articles, which does not appear to be very helpful (in the context of the research we are conducting), though most of them are up-to-date.

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?

The article does appear to be neutral and somewhat balanced, though there is an entire subsection dedicated to matchmaking practices in Asia (even though there is only one, short paragraph in that subsection) and very little information regarding matchmaking in other cultures/regions.

There does not appear to be any attempts at persuasion, however, there are some sentences that make claims that are unsupported (and have no citations) and are worded so that they read as being passive, uncertain, and not definitive (ex: "It may be fair to say that . . .")

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?

As mentioned above, the sources/resources listed in the "See Also" and "References" sections seems to be outdated and only somewhat relevant to the topic. All links do work, but none of the sources are scholarly (most of them are news articles from popular sources (i.e.; New York Times) or other Wikipedia articles).

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?

This article is clear and easy to read, but I wouldn't say it's concise; it is not a long article, but is severely lacking in reputable and scholarly information. I didn't notice any errors in spelling or grammar, but, despite this, I would not say this article is well written. This article is also terribly organized (this was one of the major problems that both my partner and I noticed); although it is broken down into sections, we agreed that the section headings were not as accurate/relevant to the topic their section was discussing as they should have been and the information within those section was not well organized and didn't flow.

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?

Both my partner and I noted that the images and visual aids included in this article seemed misplaced and irrelevant. Beyond that, they also did not include all of the information that we believe they should have.

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?

I was unable to determine whether this article was apart of any WikiProjects (other than mine and my partners), and the few comments that were included in the talk page all seem to discuss the lack of information, whether it be in general or in support of certain claims, in this article

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?

This article seems to be very weak, as it is severely lacking in information regarding the origins and history of matchmaking, and is not well organized or developed (I would say it is both underdeveloped and poorly developed). Potential improvement include:

- Reorganizing certain sections and renaming them to better reflection their contents

- Rewriting and adding information to certain sections

- Adding more sources to the "See Also" and "References" sections (which will be used in the rewriting of the article) that are scholarly and relevant

- Removing any non-relevant information

- Removing current visuals and adding new ones which are more relevant and include more information and are properly cited

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:

My partner is WCultProject