User:Expat13/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Aztec religion

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because the class I am taking focuses on Indigenous Latin American history. I'm interested in Aztec religious rituals and particularly the priest training. This topic is important because it contributes to our understanding of children, gender roles, and discipline in the Aztec culture. I wanted to see what this article said about how the Aztec priests were trained. My preliminary impression of this article is that, while the article goes into considerable detail about Aztec religious rituals, the section on priests is primarily focused on their function rather than their training.

Evaluate the article
The Aztec religion article featured quality writing and a concise presentation of information. The lead section contained introductory sentences and paragraphs for each of the main sections. It did not contain any information that not present in the article.

The article's content was relevant to the topic and discussed different aspects of the Aztec religion, including the various rituals, the pantheon, the Aztec calendar and mythology, and human sacrifice. While there didn't appear to be any missing information, several of the sections presented a very brief overview (particularly of human sacrifice) while linking to more comprehensive articles. The article's image references to the Codex Borgia served to tell the story of the Aztec from an indigenous perspective, possibly filling an equity gap.

The article was neutral in its approach.

The sources consisted mainly of online encyclopedias and secondary sources by scholars of Latin American history. However, these sources were not very up-to-date, with the most recent being a website article from 2007. Several of the resources cited were published before the 1990s. Furthermore, the article's template message explained that the article needed verifying citations, and recommended the use of JSTOR. More recent articles by Herbert Burhenn and Carline Dodds Pennock, published in 2004 and 2012 respectively, could be used as additional sources.

The article was generally well written and effectively organised. However, I noticed one instance of present tense that might need editing. In the section titled "Human Sacrifices", a sentence reads "the higher the rank of the warrior the better he is looked at as a sacrifice." I think this should be changed to past tense. I also think that the section titled "Human Sacrifice" should be placed after the "Priests and Temples" instead of after the "Calendar" and "Mythology" section. This would make sense in terms of thematic structuring, as "Priests and Temples" describes how the rituals of human sacrifices were performed.

There were a total of seven images used, none of which violated the copyright rule. They were arranged neatly and provided visual context for ritual costumes and human sacrifice.

The Talk Page discussion was cordial and relatively short. One instance of plagiarism was mentioned, and there was a question about the use of the word 'victim' in the context of voluntary sacrifice.

My overall impressions of the article are that it is well written but in need of some structural alterations and additional sources.