User:Emilygonz1/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: History of the Chinese language
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I have chosen this article because I am currently learning Chinese, but I am interested in knowing more about the language itself and doing my own digging into its history. The article itself is not extremely dense and lacks a lot of citations. This article did not satisfy my own interests with the topic, nor do I think it would satisfy many others.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * The introductory sentence is concise and clear.
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * The lead does have a description of the ancestry of the Chinese language to its Proto-Sino-Tibetan orgins, but this should be its own section rather than an introduction as it does not give a brief description of the rest of the major sections.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Yes, the Proto-Sino-Tibetan ancestry does not have its own section and is not talked about later in the article.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?
 * The Lead is overly detailed in that it is delves into origins rather than a concise summary of the entire article.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Yes, the article stays on topic of the development of the Chinese language over time.
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Yes, it cites the most major work to this day and recent news articles.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Yes, the article is completely missing any sections on the development of the written language, choosing instead to only focus on the spoken language. There are major details missing from this article in general, and there could be much improvement on what is included.
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?
 * I believe that the history of the Chinese language is not frequently taught, so I do believe that it deals with an equity gap.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * I think that the majority of the article is written in an neutral tone, but there are some sentences that seem to be baseless or individual research since there are no citations.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * No.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * No.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?
 * No.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * No, there is once citation from a very reliable source and two from newspaper articles, but otherwise there is a lack of any other sources.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * No, there is only one source cited once. While that source is reliable and has a lot of detailing on Chinese as a language, because it is only cited once, there is not a reflection of the available literature.
 * Are the sources current?
 * Yes, the newspaper articles are from recent years, and the book that is cited is still used by other scholars today.
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * No, there are very few sources.
 * Check a few links. Do they work?
 * Yes.

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?

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?

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?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * This article is rated as Start-Class but of High Importance.
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * It gives a general and brief overview of the Chinese language from its inception to today.
 * How can the article be improved?
 * While there is a general overview, there needs to be more specifics to fully understand the history of the language. For example, pinyin is very important in today's classrooms in both China and abroad for teaching the language. Pinyin is not mentioned anywhere in this article, even though it is very important in China's history and today. When was pinyin created? Why was it created? What is pinyin? None of these questions are answered by this article, even though they should be.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?
 * The article is under- and poorly developed as it misses major sections of history which are very important. Further, because the article lacks over three citations, this article is very unreliable and cannot give a good explanation of the language history.

Overall evaluation
I have found that the entire article is actually plagiarized from once source, and I do not consider that source to be very reliable. This article needs a lot of work, both in what is covered and how it is covered.

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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