User:Flanny1609/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mission 31

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.)

It was under the 'Oceanographic Explorations' tab and that is something I am interested in learning more about. This undersea expedition in the Florida Keys resulted in the collection of enough data for ten scientific papers. They collected twelve terabytes of data and made great strides in learning more about ocean acidification.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article is a concise review of Mission 31's purpose and briefly its origins. Its first sentence could be slightly more descriptive and actually identify the mission itself however, rather than just stating who initiated the expedition. The lead is concise enough but could, perhaps, include more details. It does not, however, include any information that is not in the article itself.

The article's content is very much relevant to the topic itself, as well as being up-to-date. None of the content seems inappropriate or not relevant. The one thing it could be missing, however, is a follow-up on the developments of the IMAX film that the expedition provided footage for. The article simply states that it is meant to have been released eighteen months following the expedition's conclusions and does not elaborate on its future. It is not exactly an article that relates to any underrepresented historical events or individuals but it is not one that necessarily needs to.

The article is written from a very neutral tone. None of the claims appear to be biased towards any side of any particular argument as it is simply an informative article, in which there are no sides of any arguments to be taken. As such, no particular viewpoints are overly-represented or under-represented.

The information included in the article is backed up by adequate secondary sources that provide more background and information to the topic. The links are all stable and working, leading to sources that are readily-available. The sources themselves, however, leave some things to be desired. The majority of the sources are news reports and articles from around the time of the expedition's recognition by the media. Perhaps the article could benefit from some more academic sources, such as papers written by the researchers that were present on the expedition. After doing some preliminary and baseline research, I have discovered that such sources are readily available on the internet and the article could benefit from them being added.

The article is well-written and is devoid of grammatical or syntax errors. The article is easy to read and well-organized, broken down by the following sub-topics; Background, Mission, Funding, and Impact. One of the article's biggest shortcomings, however, is the complete lack of photos and relevant images. There could be photos included of the subjects of the expedition or maps of the expedition's geographical centerings. There is only one entry on the article's Talk page, simply a "fun fact" regarding the model of submarine that was almost used for the expedition. The article is rated under C-Class and is part of the WikiProject called Oceans.

This article finds its strengths in the relevancy and well-written nature of the information. It could, however, benefit from the inclusion of photos and some references and sources of a more academic nature. I would call the article well-developed, but it simply leaves a few things to be desired.