User:Eewton/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: Boring Billion
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I chose to evaluate this article because I thought I would take this chance to really take a good look at an example of a good article.

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
Yes, the introductory sentence concisely and clearly describes the article's topic. The sentence is a little run-on, but it is full of good information and gives a nice overview of the Boring Billion. The Lead then continues on to provide an overview of specific sections in the article, including climate, tectonics, and life forms that were present at this time period. The Lead does not contain extraneous information that is not covered later in the article, though I would have appreciated a bit of information as to why bacterial community compositions of this time period are significant (the information seems a little random and may not seem important to a casual reader). However, the Lead is concise and not overly detailed.

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
Yes, the article's content is relevant to the topic. The topic is a period of time, so it is relatively easy to tell whether the authors began to stray from the topic. Details included about subtopics did not stray from the Boring Billion. I am not an expert on this topic, but it appears that there is no basic content missing or out of date (it is reasonable that not all the fine biochemical/etc details would be included in this article, since chemical structures and other fine details are not important in this context to understand the topic). This article does not address one of Wikipedia's equity gaps, however it does provide novel information to the Wikipedia database about the time period.

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
The article is written in a neutral, objective way. The Boring Billion article does not overrepresent any specific viewpoint, and describes a wide variety of scientific topics with fair attention to each one. Any mentions of people involved were factual and not opinion-based. The only persuasion that I feel when reading this article is that Earth is cool!

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
All factual assertions are backed up by at least one source. These sources are of wide variety, which is especially important as many different kinds of Earth science and processes are examined and described. These sources are not all brand new (within the last few years), but they are up to date and reflect current understandings from a diverse spectrum of authors. Historically marginalized authors are included in this author set; there must be hundreds of scientific article authors in the bibliography. The citations are complete and functional.

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
The article is well-written and easy to read - this is a great feat considering the vast diversity of complex scientific topics that are described here. Sentences are short and to the point, and are full of only important information. The Boring Billion article does not contain any spelling nor major grammatical errors. The article is very well organized into different sciences, making it easy for someone to compartmentalize information if reading the whole article or only read relevant information to their subtopic.

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
The article contains quite a few descriptive images that better explain concepts. Additionally, a couple diagrams are included to reinforce information that is written in script. Captions are brief and succinct, providing only the minimal requited information to understand the topic (encouraging the reader to refer to the text for full information). Images adhere to copyright regulations, and are laid out in a visually appealing way to encourage the reader to scroll through the whole article so they can see more cool images.

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
There are not current conversations about this topic on the Talk Page, only editing/clarification comments that seem to all be resolved. The article is in the Natural Sciences Good Articles category, and rated in the low-importance category of 3 WikiProjects: Geology, Biology, and Paleontology. This article goes into a lot more depth than what we have discussed in class so far. This is likely because we are only in the beginning of the term, and there is more time and space to provide more material on this topic.

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
The article's overall status is 'good article', and I agree with this. The wide and complex topic has been broken down into precise, organized subtopics that culminate in a complete view of different important aspects of the Earth during the Boring Billion time period. Though there is doubtless more in-depth information that could be included in this article, only field experts would know what that information is, and adding more complex information or visuals would remove the article from the scope of Wikipedia and transform it to a college-level or peer-reviewed level piece.

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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