User:Jjk2023/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
The Polar Express

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen to evaluate this article because The Polar Express is a story I really enjoyed as a child, and still enjoy today. The article is a C-Class article, so could use some work, and I wanted to evaluate it to see exactly how the article could be further developed. After reading the article, there is a lot of valuable information in it, but some information is missing, and I think the structure of the article could be improved as well.

Lead section:
Overall, the lead section for this article is strong. The lead section contains an opening sentence and paragraph that clearly and concisely touches on what The Polar Express is, and it outlines some key attributes of the book, such as the author, year of publication, and setting. However, the lead section could be improved since it does not currently include a description of what the article's major sections are. Additionally, I noticed that the lead section notes that this article is about the book, not the film adaptation or video game. However, some details of the movie are discusses throughout the article. I think this could be improved to clarify that there is some information about the movie in this article, or this disclaimer could be removed.

Content:
There is plenty of relevant and important content in this article, yet there are some gaps as well as unnecessary content as well. I think there could be a section added for analysis on the book (assuming relevant scholarly work exists on this topic). I also think that the "Development" section could be reworked, as it gives background information on the author's inspiration for the book, but also goes into a lot of detail on the locomotive that the story was based on. I think these could be broken up into different sections, or at least sub sections. Finally, there is additional information that could be added about the film adaptation, such as which Oscars it was nominated for.

Tone and Balance:
For the most part, I think the tone and balance of the article are appropriate, and are not biased towards one point of view. One part of the article that could be improved in this manner is when the film adaptation is noted to be an Oscar nominated film, and this is something that is noted in the Talk section as well. As the Talk page notes, this is true, but the Oscars that the film was nominated for were all for sound/music, and the movie did receive some mixed reviews overall. However, the way it is phrased in the article makes it sound like the movie was a huge success with no negative reviews.

Sources and References:
Overall, the use of sources is good in this article. For almost all the facts presented, there are sources with active links that do work, and the sources presented appear reliable. However, there is also room for improvement in terms of the sources. For example, there are no sources provided for any of the information about the film adaptation that is presented in the article, so sources should be added for this information. Additionally, there are some facts that are presented without citations, such as the fact that the whistle sound was recorded from "Sierra Railroad No. 3," which is presented in the "Development" section.

Organization and Writing Quality:
The writing quality of this article could be improved. It comes across as very basic writing at times, and is not very professional. For example, in the summary section, the article reads "He sees a conductor who then proceeds to look up at his window. He runs downstairs and goes outside." This writing quality could definitely be improved. Additionally, I think the "Development" section could be broken into two sections, or at least include a sub-section to differentiate between the author's inspiration and facts about the locomotive, and these sections could include more details. I also think that this background information could be provided before the plot summary section.

Images and Media:
The article only includes one image of the cover of the book, which is captioned properly and laid out in a visually appealing way. However, considering The Polar Express won the Caldecott Medal for its illustrations, I think more images should be included from the book.

Talk page discussion:
On the Talk page, this article is rated as C-Class. It is a part of a few WikiProjects, such as Books, Children's literature, Holidays, and more. There are several conversations occurring on the Talk page, some of which have to do with how the article can be improved as I mentioned in this evaluation. Some conversations are about improving the writing quality of the article, and some are about clarifying information about the film adaptation of the book, as well as other topics.

Overall impressions:
Overall, the article includes lots of relevant and interesting information, but there is a lot of room for improvement as well. There could be further analysis added, as well as clarifying information and better citations regarding the film adaptation of the book. Additionally, the writing quality could be improved, and more images should be added from the book.