User:Hugh Beresford1997/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Music of Syria)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen this article as it combines multiple topics of interest consisting of Politics of the Middle-East, Middle-Eastern music, the Arabic musical system, Syrian/surrounding areas and their religious affiliation, and the Syrian refugee situation that still exists.

Evaluate the article
The Lead does say that the article focuses on the current musical practices in Syria as oppose to the Greater Syria which is described as historic and culturally Arabic Syria. However, the lead is very unhelpful as it does not give a good overview of what the wiki is about.

The content of the article, as far as I can tell, is accurate. However, there is so little of it that it has major gaps in the literature.

The tone and balance of the literature seems to be that only one person has ever put information into the wiki. I believe that it may be someone from Syria as the information given is good but the writing quality look sto be of someone with English as their second language.

Sources and Citations. Many of the sentences were not sourced. There were only four sources in the whole wiki and four citations which looked relatively trustworthy but only one looked to be scholarly.

The organization is good as it takes the reader through the more relevant topics in Syrian music such as folk, classical, Syriac, and dances. But as stated before the writing quality is not scholarly.

Images and media are minimal with only one photo of a small ensemble on stage. There is a small description of the musicians being from Allepo which is possibly suppose to be an example of the last line of the lead about Syria being one of the Arabic classical centres.

The talk page does say that the article is part of a wiki project on Syria. There is no talk except a description about why the page is up. It is given a stub class and has not been given any rating yet.

My overall impression of the article is that it has much potential and was written by someone who cares deeply about Syria and the culture but has neither the resources or time to complete it further. I believe the strengths are in the folk music section and how much more detailed this section was compared to the others. This article can be improved in nearly every aspect. It needs more information on the sections it has and more sections to be added to fill in the missing gaps. ALso, it needs to be cited more thoroughly with the information that is there. It also needs more photos and media to capture the readers attention and give visual examples of what is being spoken of. The article is underdeveloped and incomplete while also being poorly written.