User:Jsalotto/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: Education in Japan
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. This article was listed as top importance on the Japan group's page. Based on the amount of discussion on the talk page, there's a lot wrong with it to evaluate.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Leading with stating that secondary education is mandatory for children in Japan feels like an odd choice. Kind of like it skipped a real intro and just went straight into the details.
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? The lead feels like they're just throwing in a bunch of details that they couldn't fit in elsewhere and as a result it's just a smattering of details that don't belong. Most of what's in the lead feels like it should've been in their own sections further down.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? Most of what's in the lead is not present in the article. There's an entire section on government spending and education participation in the lead and then it's never mentioned in the content.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? I feel pretty safe calling it overly detailed

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? The content is all relevant to the topic
 * Is the content up-to-date? Looking over the sources, most of them are in the mid '00s, with a bunch being in the last few years, and as recent as about a week ago. Seems fairly up to date.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? There are likely some things missing that aren't coming to mind but I don't see anything egregiously misplaced.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? There are a few unnecessary sentences about the education system being criticized by the US outside of the criticisms section, but overall I think it is largely neutral.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Not as far as I can tell.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? It mentions the negatives and criticisms of the education system multiple times without any of the positives aside from global rankings.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? I perhaps leans a bit on the negative side of viewing things but aside from that, no

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Most of the statements have sources but there are several statements that do not have any and were marked as citation needed by other people.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? There's a good spread of sources used. There could always be more, but maybe some more recent statistical data would be in order.
 * Are the sources current? Many of the sources are perhaps slightly dated (mid 00s at the earliest) but the rest are fairly recent.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? Everyone that I tried and wasn't a book reference worked.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? The writing is a bit stilted in the lead especially. Mostly consists of short statements that don't flow together well.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? I didn't catch any.
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? There are three pictures: two of typical Japanese classrooms, and one of a very old painting. They're not terribly enlightening but given the topic that's probably about as well as you could do.
 * Are images well-captioned? Yes
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? They point to their sources so they do as far as I am aware.
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? The pictures appear next to their relevant sections.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? There is (or was) a decent amount of discussion about the wording and data used in the article. Most of it was pretty old and there isn't an awful within the past few years. One extensive reply pointed out some orientalism that the article had at the time (2005 I think?) among other misrepresentations. Recently it is mostly fixing external links.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? It is rated as a C and is part of the Japan wikiproject.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? Most of what is being mentioned is more toward the negative side. There are certainly plenty of problems with Japan's education system but it's a bit more negative than I'm used to from school.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? It's a bit abandoned at the moment so there isn't much work being done on it.
 * What are the article's strengths? It covers pretty much the whole spectrum of what education an average person would go through. The chart showing the time spent on the degrees in various fields was a neat touch.
 * How can the article be improved? The lead definitely needs to be shortened and given improved wording. It needs citations in a few places.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? I think it's a bit underdeveloped in content and detail. It gives a wide picture but doesn't go very far into the subjects it covers.

Optional activity

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