User:EKGMachine/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Agoge

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen this article to evaluate as it is listed as a start-class article with mid-importance. It is quite short, and contains one long section with multiple shorter sections, which could be rebalanced and more efficiently worded. The paragraph headings could be tidied up to appear more professional. I imagine there could be more citations added, and the same dictionary entry is cited several times - a range of sources could be added. There are also many claims without sources, and some grammatical errors.

Evaluate the article
Lead section


 * Good introductory sentence and discussion of etymology - seems accurate and sources LSJ
 * Paragraphs about origin and purpose could possibly be beefed up, potentially with subheadings to go more into detail surrounding the theories of origin etc

Content


 * "Structure" paragraph is enormous and contains irrelevant information
 * Could definitely be divided into "structure" and "purpose" paragraphs
 * Crypteia does not need to be detailed, save that for the Crypteia page
 * Information about Spartan opinion of helots that is irrelevant
 * First paragraph has one citation for a number of claims - should examine source and determine other possible sources for this information
 * Remaining three paragraphs are tiny, esp. compared to the giant paragraph before
 * If the Agoge is "the rigorous training program mandated for all male Spartan citizens" as claimed in the introductory sentence, why is there information about female education? Women had an education but were not part of the agoge - save this information for the page on Spartan women.
 * "Rise and fall" should be titled more precisely and could be beefed up with more information, if it is available. It could be expanded into a section on the agoge in the Hellenistic period
 * "Roman agoge" could be again titled more precisely to clarify that this is still the Spartan agoge under Roman rule, rather than a Roman adaptation of the program - this would fall nicely after the section on the Hellenistic agoge

Tone and Balance


 * Tone is relatively neutral
 * Written as though all information is confirmed fact, which is untrue
 * Reasoning behind certain practices is given with no citation in many instances, and in many instances is presented as beneficial: "this let the boys become accustomed to hunger, and this prevented hunger from being a problem during battle" makes sense logically, but is not cited and may be an assumption on behalf of the author

Sources and References


 * Many many claims uncited
 * The same source is cited several times; a variety of new sources would be useful
 * Mention of "Xenophon says this" and "Plutarch says this", Plutarch gets a citation and Xenophon does not ?
 * Aforementioned Plutarch citation does not cite where he says this, just links to an online translation of his work - is this acceptable?
 * An edition of Goldsmith's 1836 "History of Greece" is cited; surely there are more recent sources for this information
 * Citation 5 is a history.com article - not reliable, should be removed
 * End of lead section "some classical sources say..." - who?

Organization and Writing Quality


 * Writing quality does not feel professional
 * Organization needs work, see my notes on Content above
 * Some easily-fixed grammatical mistakes
 * Alternating use of "boy" "man" "male" and "girl" "woman" "females" - should be made consistent

Images and Media


 * One image - a 19th century painting of Spartan exercise. Maybe there could be other images found that are more applicable?
 * Some external links are interesting, but some may not be relevant: Spartan vs Roman Legionnaire video does not feel necessary, and British Museum game seems like it would be interesting but requires Flash and is now broken, so these both should be removed.

Talk Page


 * Most recent message is from 2013, although most recent update to the page itself is January 2021
 * Discussion mostly centred around removing irrelevant topics
 * Several areas of discussion surrounding education of Spartan women - why? There is a women in ancient Sparta page

Overall


 * Lots of information on the page, but needs to be restructured
 * Many citations need removal, and new sources should be found, or some claims should be deleted
 * Information that remains should be reworded to sound more professional and assumptions about purpose should be removed

Instructor Feedback
Great work, EKGMachine! You've really gone through this article with a fine-toothed comb and highlighted all the areas for improvement. There are so many aspects of this article that could easily be improved (especially those that you highlight in the 'content' section and the lack of references) you would certainly have more than enough work to keep you busy if you select this article to work on for the semester. Gardneca (talk) 21:01, 9 February 2021 (UTC)