User:Cw1120/EvaluateArticle

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: Encyclopedia
 * Assigned for course work, will help understand how the history of encyclopedia's is described on Wikipedia and how it may differ from the articles that we read for class.

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?

Lead evaluation
I think that the lead concisely describes encyclopedias. However, I also think that some of the sentences or phrases, particularly in the second paragraph, could be reworded or restructured to more clearly detail the information. It does not appear that there is content about etymology in the lead section, which is the first section after the introduction. It does seem that all of the information that is covered in the introduction is covered in the rest of the article, making this a concise description rather than an overly detailed one.

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?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Content evaluation
There seems to be a lack of information in the etymology section. I would be interested in learning more about this section, but found the information to be needing more examples or explanation of the examples given. Some of the subsections need additional explanation or need to be deleted if they are not important so that the article follows a better flow of content. I also think that the characteristics might go too far into how encyclopedias don't fit into the definition of dictionary, rather than focusing on the definition and individual characteristics of encyclopedias themselves. I don't think that this article deals with Wikipedia's equity gaps, mostly due to the fact that the "unnamed contributors" of the past encyclopedias (Loveland and Reagle) are not mentioned throughout the history section. I also think that we learned that "Content is therefore reviewed, checked, kept or removed based on its own intrinsic value and external sources supporting it" is not true, and I am wary of this statement since it is not sourced.

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?

Tone and balance evaluation
I don't think that this article is completely neutral. I say this mostly due to some of the content gaps that I mentioned in my content section. I think that this article is biased towards believing that encyclopedias are always written by experts and that Wikipedia fits in because the edits are only made "based on [the content's] own intrinsic value and external sources supporting it". I do not believe that this is a neutral standpoint on encyclopedias based on the articles that we read for class, as well as some of our class discussions.

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?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
There seems to be a lack of sources in the characteristics section specifically, which causes this section to be viewed as unreliable. There seems to be a good amount of sources for this article. In addition, there seems to be decent amount of current articles, as well as articles that are more spaced out timewise. It is hard to tell the demographics of the authors based solely on their names, but there does seem to be some variability in the names, as well as the publications. The few links that I checked seem to work.

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?

Organization evaluation
There are some confusing sentences and sections of paragraphs throughout the article that can be confusing for the reader. For example, the first paragraph in the section on etymology seems to change the literal translation a couple of times. The section on characteristics is also a little clunky and doesn't read well. I think that reorganizing this section would help the audience better understand the point of this section. There is also somewhat conflicting information from the etymology section and history section, possibly due to a lack of collaboration across these sections. I also think that some of the subsections are arbitrarily created, and not necessarily needed, as I mentioned in the content evaluation.

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?

Images and media evaluation
I think that the images connect to the content that they are close to well. I think that the captions indicate well what the image is, but not always why the image is being included. I think that included why the image was added to the caption might help overall readership. There is also a quote, I think, that is included in an image box and I'm not sure that it adds to the content in a valuable or visually appealing way.

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?

Talk page evaluation
This article is rated C-Class and it part of multiple WikiProjects. It seems like most of the conversations on this talk page are ones about edit permissions for simple copyediting edits. There is also an interesting talk page section discussing whether to add an "encyclopedic" section to the article, as well as opinions on the different definitions of that word. There are also some talk page comments that seem to be random or inappropriate and, I believe for this reason, have been ignored.

One difference that stuck out to me of information that is different from how we discussed the topic in class is the inclusion in the lead section that encyclopedias are "compiled by experts", which I believe we learned is not always the case. Rather, we learned that sometimes it is the work an individual that might not be an expert, but is compiling the work of experts.

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?

Overall evaluation
I think that this article is underdeveloped. I think that the article has a good foundation, but information needs to be added or reevaluated to make this a better article. I think as well as some of the information being reevaluated, I think that some of the sections should be reevaluated. I think that the article has a strong introduction as well as strong section headings for the history section. I think that the weaker sections are the etymology and characteristics sections. However, looking at the talk page, it seems that there might be current effort to make this article better.

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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