User:Jade.yacoub/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mind–body dualism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I choose this article since it has to do with my course for this semester and I thought it would be beneficial to learn more on this topic especially since we have a quiz coming up. Overall, it is a topic that fits into the course content and that would help me be more informed on the concept of mind body dualism. As an overview, I believe the article is well written and makes sense. Knowing the topic a bit, I believe it is well explained for someone who would not know what dualism in the mind body sector is.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The introductory sentence of the lead clearly explained the article's topic which in this case is mind body dualism by stating a clear and concise definition of the concept which can help people get an overview of what dualism truly is. It doesn't really offer an overview of all the topics that are covered in the whole article which could be very beneficial to add considering that it a long article that is full of details. All the information in the lead is talked about in the article but since there isn't a sentence explaining everything in the article, that problem doesn't really occur. The lead is very concise and offers are the necessary details to the rest of the article.

Content

As this wikipedia page been reviewed multiple by different wikipedia writers, we have a good idea that the content presented is reliable and has been formed on a solid base. All in all, we can conclude that the content present in the wikipedia article is very pertinent to the topic which is dualism. Since we all have a base in the concept of dualism after learning about the topic in class through our lectures, I can conclude that from the knowledge I have, the content is pertinent to the topic of the article. Since the concept of dualism mind body has been present fro a long period of time, there is not really a time step to say the content is up to date. It would have been beneficial to have maybe a section about modern day dualism since it probably is still present even thought it is less talked about in those terms. I think that the concept of modern day dualism should be present in the article. I don't believe it touches upon Wikipedia's equity gaps since the concept is still talked about and learnt about all over the world.

Tone and balance

From a reader point of view and since this the first time I evaluate a Wikipedia article, I do believe it is a neutral toned body of text since everything is presented in a non-biased way. Since it is a content that is philosophical, it can be hard to fall into the trap of giving and stating biased opinions. However, this article tries to state facts about dualism by approaching it from a positive and negative way by looking at dualism's faults for example the objections proven against certain article like the dualistic arguments. I would also say that every point in the article is well represented, obviously there are certain sections that are more known about like cartesian dualism that have a lot more details and elements added to it since it is an older thought experiment.

Sources and reference:

This Wikipedia source is based on reliable sources that address the topic and can be found at the bottom of the page. We can find the many different references from different authors that support the details found in the article allowing different perspectives and point of views. Since the topic addresses an older philosophical theory, the sources are not current have an olde date, however, are still pertinent. They are better sources such as primary sources from the philosophes themselves (archives for example). Although Wikipedia is not the most reliable source, primary sources can be found in the references so one can always consult them for confirmation about the addressed topic.

Organization and writing quality:

The way this article is written is professional since there are no opinions and consists of facts and the facts stated are supported by historical proof. Also, the article is very organized: It is easy to read as the different aspects of dualisms are separated in paragraphs that aren’t too long. From what I read, there are no grammatical and spelling errors in this article since it seems to be a major article. The subtitles and the head titles help divide the body of text into easy to read paragraphs. It is easy to find your way around the article if you are looking for specific informations since the subtitles help gather all the information in paragraphs.

Images and Media

The images and diagrams represented are very accurately describing mind-body dualism. Despite this, they may be difficult to understand without reading information on the topic. After having read the article, the images do enhance understanding of the text because we get to see what is described in a more graphic and visual way. The caption of the images does really give historical context and help the reader to properly understand what the image means and how it properly relates to the topic. Without the captions, the images would be very interpretable and not correlated as strictly to the explanation given in the text. This means that the extra information given in the caption like the name of the philosopher who constructed this theory and what the representation really enriches the texts accuracy. The images are not inappropriate in any way, therefor they do not violate any of Wikipedia violations. The images do nothing but support mind-body dualism and do not represent any controversial or inappropriate topics or images. The images are not laid out in a particularly appealing way. The placement of the images is a basic Wikipedia layout. They are placed next to what they support, so that could be important placement

Talk page discussion

There are a lot of discussion topics and questions up on the talk page all that are aiming at bettering the article. We can see that everyone that took part in editing the document really wanted for it to have reliable sources attached to it as well as not be biased. Every single one of the writers on this talk page was there to better the article by using valid sources, that aren't biased. As I viewed the talk page, I saw that it was a wiki project which means that multiple writers were all working on it at the same time, it was published as a wikiproject in these categories: Philosophy, metaphysics, religion, mind where it was ranked b class in a high importance, alternative medicine where it was rated b class, neuroscience where it was rated b class in mid importance and skepticism in a b class. The wikipedia goes more in depth on certain topics that we viewed in class while viewing it in a different way using different examples.

Overall impressions

Firstly, the article describes in depth the concept of mind-body dualism using references from philosophers and multiple perspectives to give you a proper overview of the topic. This leads to a complete and full understanding of the topic. It describes this theory very deeply. Despite this, I think that the information might be difficult to grasp fully if you are not prone to this topic. For people who are first reading about this, it may be overwhelming and almost incomprehensible. I believe the article is very well developed and discusses many different angles of the topic while going in depth about each.