User:Gabweb18/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: Culture of Ethiopia
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I have chosen the article Culture of Ethiopia to evaluate because I don’t know much about Ethiopian culture, but I would love to learn more about it. Based on the page, their culture is very rich and diverse. The page covers a few areas of Ethiopian culture, but is missing some areas like dance, art, and family life. The areas covered on the page seem to have a good amount of research about them, but they do not have citations.

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 Lead includes an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article’s topic. In the first line, the article talks about Ethiopian culture and its diversity, which clearly shows that the article’s topic is Ethiopian culture. The Lead does include a contents section, which outlines the article’s major sections. While it has this content section, there is not a typed out paragraph that describes the article’s sections in the Lead. The Lead does include information on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam construction, which is not covered in the article. The Lead is concise in conveying the idea that the article will discuss Ethiopia’s rich culture and that the culture was influenced by many different civilizations/countries.

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 discussion of Ethiopian music, clothing, cuisine, sports, media, language, religion, holidays, and gender roles are all relevant to the topic of Ethiopian culture because culture is influenced by a country’s activities, languages, practices, and arts. The content seems up-to-date overall because the article provides information on present day culture. There is content missing on dance, art, history, and family life. The article also has sections that don’t have a lot of information on them, like holidays and religion. While Ethiopia is a well-known area, most people probably do not know a lot of information about the culture and people, so this article does fill in a gap on Ethiopian perspectives and provides information that is underrepresented.

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 remains neutral by providing only facts and no opinions. There doesn’t seem to be any personal opinions or biases in the article. This is probably because no political or ideological ideas are really discussed in the article. The article’s content covers many different areas and does so in a thorough way, which keeps the viewpoints from being over and underrepresented. There isn’t any content in the article that tries to persuade the reader in favor of or against a position. The article overall keeps a neutral tone and keeps opinions out of the discussion.

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
There are many facts in this article that are not backed up by sources of information. Most of the sections have few or no citations to back up the information provided. The two sections that do provide citations are Language and Gender Roles in Ethiopia. The information in these two sections are backed up by reliable secondary sources like journals, government websites, and books. The sources are also thorough and cover many aspects of Ethiopian culture. Most of the sources are current as they come from sources published in the last 20 years. The sources seem to come from authors from multiple races and ethnicities. I was able to get most of the links working, but there was one or two that did not work.

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 information provided in the article is easy to read and clear. The writers wrote the information in way that is not confusing and easily understood to people who are not experts. The article uses proper grammar and has little to no spelling errors. The article is also well-organized into sections using titles for each section and subsection, which keep the article clean and organized.

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 does provide a few images to enhance the understanding of the topics like pictures of musicians discussed, women in traditional clothing discussed, and a pie chart of the languages of Ethiopia. The images are well-captioned by directly stating what they are under the pictures. The images used do adhere to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations by being images from Wikipedia Commons or Creative Commons, so they can be used freely without violating copyright laws. Yes, the images are laid out in a visually appealing way by being used next to the paragraph they help enhance without disrupting the article.

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 aren’t any active conversations going on in the talk page, and there are only a few conversation on the talk page overall. There was a conversation about clearing up information in the language and clothing sections of the article, but most of the discussions are about fixing links and needing citations for the article. The article is a part of the WikiProject Africa and is supported by the WikiProject Ethiopia. It is rated as Start-Class and Top-importance for WikiProject Africa. In class, we have discussed the talk pages and how people are actively talking on the pages, but on this talk page people don’t really seem to be actively discussing the article. In class, we talked about how cultural practices and daily life influence culture, and the people on Wikipedia seem to agree with that idea, which is reflected in the topics covered in the article.

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
Overall, the article has a decent amount of information covering Ethiopia’s culture, but the information doesn’t have any sources. Also there are some areas of Ethiopian culture that are not in the article. The article’s strengths are that it uses a neutral tone and covers a perspective that is not usually focused on in the Western world. The article is also well-organized and uses images to enhance the article. The article could be improved by adding on some new sections that are not discussed in the article, like the dance and the arts, and adding citations to the information already on the article. I would say this article is underdeveloped because even though it has a decent amount of information there are no citations to support the information. Also more areas of Ethiopian culture could be discussed on the page.

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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