User:HowOftenIThinkAboutTheRomanEmpire/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Religious persecution in the Roman Empire

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 it meets the criteria for what I'm looking for on my assignment. There is more information that can be added about not only the persecution of religion in the roman empire, but the overall concept of what religion is in Rome and the many aspects of different religions in this location and time period. I believe I can add valuable information and context to support this articles claims on persecution.

Evaluate the article
Reading the first paragraph, I noticed the author's introductory sentence starts off with the emphasis on diversity of cultures within the roman empire. “As the Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire, expanded, it came to include people from a variety of cultures, and religions. The worship of an ever increasing number of deities was tolerated and accepted. The government, and the Romans in general, tended to be tolerant towards most religions and religious practices.Some religions were banned for political reasons rather than dogmatic zeal and other rites which involved human sacrifice were banned.”(Religious persecution in the roman empire) This was a brief description of the overall concept or message. However, I noticed it’s not mentioning the actual major sections themselves. Most importantly the lead section is concise without being overly detailed.

The author's content is relevant to the article. The content is up to date. The last edit was made on the 18th of August, 2023 at 23:29. It seems that all the content is from reliable sources and can support their own claims made in this article. There is diversity in religion discussed representing both pagan, judaism, christianity, ect. It includes the history of religious persecution and discrimination for religious beliefs.

The article seems neutral. The only imbalance I noticed is that the viewpoint on christianity has greater detail and evidence than the rest of the religions. I understand christianity played a big role when it came to being one of the victims of persecution in the roman empire. However there could have been more thought and research done on the other religions listed.

The author's facts and evidence seem to be backed up by a secondary source. Sources are up to date. Understandably some texts themselves are going to be old sources due to being “historical evidence”. Most of the links I checked work, taking me to a credible site.

The article has 4 images listed. Each represents Roman art and cultural aspects relating to the topic of the article. Each image is cited with the name and date of the art piece. These images appear to adhere to wikipedia's copyright regulations.

The article is clear, concise, and easy to read. There are few spelling errors. However, I noticed some grammatical errors or awkward sentences that could be edited. The article is well organized and was broken down into each religion/subject and how it related to the main idea.

My overall impression is the article had strength in the imagery used, sourcing evidence, and main idea. This article can be improved. I believe the statement’s information and context could have more detail. Specifically behind certain religious groups that were not as well represented.