User:HieronymusBot/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: Phlogiston theory
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * I was perusing this article recently when the term "phlogiston" kept coming up in an assigned reading. I suppose the recency of that brought it easily to mind.

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 is pretty great. The first sentence succinctly outlines the shape of the "theory" as well as placing it in history as an outdated notion in scientific thought. There is no verbal description of the sections, but there is a table of contents which does visually what probably would only be worse in words. No information is in the lead which is not expanded upon later in the article. At only a few sentences long, the lead is nice and concise.

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?

Content evaluation
Everything in the article is relevant to the phlogiston theory. It takes the reader from the inception of the idea, all the way through to its final twilight. Being a layman and not an historian, it seems to me that the content is up to date. Perhaps there is cutting edge historical work going on where discoveries on the history of phlogiston have been made and not yet added to the article, but I am not privy to them. Perhaps a little more on the classical theory which gave rise to phlogiston theory would be apt, but the amount that is there is probably sufficient, otherwise the article seems complete.

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 nearly totally neutral, by my reckoning. There is one troubling line: "phlogiston theory became more complicated and assumed too much" in the final "Challenges and Demise" section. It's just a bit whiggish and vague in what is meant by "assumed too much." Beyond this, and without checking carefully the content at each citation, the article seems pretty balanced and evenly represented.

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?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
There is one use of the phrase, "some phlogiston proponents explained..." without attribution to a source, and this is marked as an issue in the article. The pool of sources seems reasonably diverse with a good number relative to the amount of information in the article, as well as cutting across a large swath of time (largely compendiums of primary sources compiled in the 20th and 21st centuries.) All links that I checked 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
I noticed no grammatical issues, and the organization of the article in general seems pretty good. The breakdown of topics is reasonable, with a small piece on the pre-history of the theory, and then a section on the notable proponents of it, followed by a final section on its detractors and eventual conquerors. In style, it is to the point and not overly complicated in diction or syntax. Good stuff.

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 only two images in this article, and they are just portraits of the persons being written about. The layout is perfectly fine, but they don't add much to the article. Both images are far too old to be under copyright. The captions link to the pages dedicated to the two gentlemen, but otherwise provide no more information.

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
The article is given a B rating in both the chemistry and history of science wikiprojects.

Many of the conversations are about citing things properly and adding new information, we haven't yet talked about this exactly in class (though I suspect we will on Thursday) but in general these conversations are going into the nity grity whereas our in class discussions deal with the bigger picture and the relevance to the scientific historical narrative as a whole.

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 is pretty good. I think the B rating it receives is warranted. It is strong in its concision, but also weak in that respect. That is to say, the information it has is well presented and cited (for the most part, barring above-mentioned issues) but it could use some more information as well. For instance, it would do with some more on how the theory moved around the world and how it was received in general as opposed to individual natural philosophers. The article is therefore complete, but could use further development.