User:Gnevins/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: (link)
 * Sabermetrics: (Sabermetrics)
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * This article is about advanced baseball statistics. There are many headers, references, and types of formatting. From briefly looking at this article, it seems like there are many strengths and areas for improvement, so I want to dive deeper into the 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:
The lead does include an intro sentence that concisely describes the article's topic. The first sentence gives a definition of sabermetrics. There is not really a brief description of the article's major sections. It transitions into the first section nicely, but it doesn't touch on the later headings. Everything in the lead is present in the article. The lead is very concise. I think it could actually include a little more information on what the article will discuss later on.

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
Most of the article's content is relevant to sabermetrics. I thought the section on the history of sabermetrics was too long compared to the total length of the article. The content could be updated to include some of the newer sabermetrics that are being developed. This is a great article to add content to because there are always new sabermetrics being developed. This does not address an underrepresented topic since baseball analytics are becoming a huge part of the sport in general.

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 mostly written with a neutral point of view, but there were some parts that seemed like the author was pushing for the reader to agree with one argument. The article discusses older statistics and newer statistics, and often says that the newer statistics are better. While this is usually true, the author should explain how the older and newer statistics differ, and the reader can decide which stats are better to use. I think most viewpoints are well represented, although there seems to be more time allocated to explaining why old statistics are bad. The author should really spend more time on the newer stats since those are of the highest importance.

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
Most facts in the article are backed up by reliable sources. However, there were a few facts that needed were lacking references. For example, the author talked about WHIP and why it's important, but failed to provide a reference of where that formula came from. The sources come from a wide variety of places, but the sources should be more current. The most recent source was from 2010. There have been revolutionary developments in the past decade, so those should be incorporated into this article. All of the links that I tried worked.

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 clear and concise, but the organization could be improved. I like how the author split up the sabermetrics by pitching and hitting statistics. However, I think the paragraphs within those sections should be broken up even more because they are very long and text-heavy to the reader. There are a lot of other headings and separate paragraphs within those headings that are organized well. The grammar and spelling looks good.

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
There are no images anywhere in this article. Sabermetrics can be a difficult topic to add pictures to. While pictures are usually helpful to most articles, I think the author made the right call by not putting in any pictures here. It's never good to add pictures that don't add value.

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 was a recent conversation about the structure of one of the early paragraphs. One person commented that an early paragraph was somewhat misleading based on the current structure of the paragraph. There's also some controversy from editors about who actually created the OBP stat. The article is C-Rated and of interest to the Baseball and Statistics WikiProjects. We haven't specifically discussed sabermetrics in general in our class. However, in our class, we have focused on some of the newer findings in sports analytics while this article spends a lot of time on the history of statistics.

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 C-Rated, so it needs some work to get more up-to-date. The strengths of the article include: clear and concise wording, lots of references used, mostly neutral point of view, and descriptive headings were used. The major weaknesses include: many references are out of date, many text-heavy paragraphs, some ideas are pushed more by the author, and some facts could be incorrect (already being discussed on the talk page). The article could be improved by using more current sources to reference some of the newer sabermetrics. The text-heavy paragraphs should be broken up a little more with sub-headings to make the text easier to read. Also, some of the facts should be checked for accuracy to make sure everything is valid. This article is well-developed, but it could be improved by implementing some newer sabermetric principles into the body of the article. Sabermetrics keep on improving, so this article should be updated frequently.

Optional activity

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