User:Civil Protection Team 9/Week 5 - Wikipedia Exercise

Lead section
A good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.

I think the lead has an acceptable intro sequence. Overall it seems informative and concise. The lead section attempts to cover the major sections, though I think more direct connections could be made to the upcoming content. I don't think there is any loose or misc. information included.

Content
Overall I think the content stays focused through the article. The one element that gives me pause is the recurring distinction between Encyclopedia and dictionary. I think once or twice would suffice. Edits, have been made even today, so the page is definitely maintained. I will need to review the sources to know if the information is current. I didn't find anything that I though blatantly should not be part of the article, and most tangential topics are addressed by other linked Wiki pages. I couldn't say for sure if there are content gaps. There is a lot of information on the Western tradition and the Far East. There could be content missing from Africa or the Americas, but I am not sure to what extent cultures from those regions produced similar texts.

Tone and Balance
I don't read any bias in the article, or attempts to persuade the reader. As far as viewpoints being represented, well, there is certainly a lot of Western history on display. There is Far Eastern work as well, though as mentioned above there could be some gaps.

Sources and References
A Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.

Most of the claims are supported, though I noted a coupe of *citation needed* instances, along with similar *verification failed* instances. Without having access to many of the sources, it's hard for me to tell how in depth the sources are. Overall the sources could be more current. The most recent publication seems to be from 2009-- it would be good to have something from within the past 3-5 years. I can't say if there are better sources, though a quick Google Scholar search indicates that there are a lot of avenues to bring in additional sources (something that is sorely needed I think). The randomly selected links I picked all worked.

Organization and writing quality
I read through most of the article without any trouble, though there were a couple of grammatical question marks that snagged me as I was reading. The organization is reasonable, but I would swap the positions of *History* and *Largest encyclopedias.*

Images and Media
The images are well chosen and well captioned. None of the images seem to violate any copyright codes/regulations. The placement of images seems suitably strategic to me, and generally well balanced.

Talk page discussion
Discussion is ongoing in the the talk page, and it looks as if there is semi-active collaboration to resolve potential issues with the article. The conversations seem pleasant and constructive. The article is a "level-4 vital article of Art," and is rated as "B-Class." Also, this article is listed as "of interest" to "multiple WikiProjects."

Overall impressions
Overall I would say that this article is well on its way. It has already undergone a series of revision passes and shows a medium level of polish. The articles strengths are in content (including media) and structural organization. Sources strike me as the single biggest area of improvement. I will say that the listed sources are pretty evenly distributed. That is to say that the article doesn't rely too heavily on any single source. There still could be more of them, and more modern sources. All the listed sources are over a decade old. There are also several assertions that need to be cited in the latter half of the article. There may be additional content that needs to be introduced to more fully flesh out the topic, but I don't know what content that would include. B-class seems appropriate.