User:ESE98/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an Article

 * The evaluated article: Harem (zoology)
 * Ever since I was academically introduced to the Harem system that some animals like elephant seals form, I have wondered why would these animals form such an intricate social community and reproductive strategy as Harems despite the risk of possible inbreeding's genetic consequences! In other words, I chose to evaluate this article because I was curious to know the evolutionary costs and benefits of Harem systems in animals.

Lead
The lead well defines the harem system in the animal kingdom in a concise manner. It provides an overview of the sections later discussed in the article without being very detailed. Moreover, the lead does not introduce any information that is not well defined later in the article.

Content
Overall, the content of the article is sufficient to understand the topic "Harem" where the overview section provides adequate information on the social system and the reproductive strategy employed by animals in harems. I found that all the discussed information were relevant, and necessary, to the topic discussion. However, the article only lists examples of animals that form harems without providing any detailed explanation of some or all of these examples which, in my opinion, does not allow the reader to fully understand the diversity in Harem formation across different animal species. Moreover, the article is relatively not up-to-date as the last publication was made in 2011 with most of the cited sources the article draws the information from being published in the late 1980's and early 2000's.

Tone and Balance
This evaluation criterion does not particularly apply to the herein evaluated article. However, the article concisely provides a neutral viewpoint on the discussed topic with references to different inferences made about the evolutionary benefits and costs of Harem forming in animal species. In other words, there is observed bias in the article.

Sources and References
Despite being short in length, the article draws information form over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles which indicates that the information used in the article is reliable and representative of different scientific findings. All the information presented in the article are referenced with a proper citation; almost every sentence in the article content is referenced to one or more sources. In other words, all claims in the article are supported by findings drawn from variable, reliable sources. However, some of the links in the references section do not work which makes it more time-consuming for the reader to search for the source him or herself.

Organization
The article discusses the topic in a concise manner with attention drawn to the important aspects of this topic's discussion. Overall, the article is well-organized with an informative lead, a descriptive overview, and specific subheadings to the evolutionary cost and benefits of Harem formation in animal species. However, the length of each of the subheadings is not appropriate and does not emphasize the importance of the subheadings' discussed information. Moreover, each of the subheadings "costs" and "benefits" should have included further subheadings to "male" and "female" to make it easier and more clear for the reader to follow the presented information. No major grammatical or spelling mistakes were detected.

Images and Media
This article definitely lacks visual representation of the topic through images and media. However, the one image included in the article is well-captioned and does not violate Wikipedia's copyright regulations as the image is categorized as public domain. Even though, the image is well representing the harem society in animals, more images of harem societies in different animal species, for example, or of the sneaking theory would have made the article more engaging to the reader.

Checking the Talk Page
This article is a part of WikiProject Animals, and is rated as Stub-class, mid-importance article. The talk page included discussions about the overall representation of the article as to whether detailed examples of animal harems should be included or only listed with references to other Wikipedia articles. In the talk page, some edits to the information and the references have also been made by other editors on Wikipedia. However, no recent discussions have been made on this article's talk page since 2014.

Overall Impressions
Overall, the article is well-written and its discussed information is reliable and well-referenced. Another strength in the article is that it is concise and unbiased. Some of the drawbacks that I observed in the article included: lack of sufficient visual representation of the topic, the inactivity of some of the references links, and the outdated resources used. This article is underdeveloped and can be improved by including information form recent resources that support or undermine the current theories on the evolutionary costs and benefits of harems, for instance.