User:Jthornhill16/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: Flehmen response
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.

I chose the evaluate this article because it was classified as a C-class article, and upon reading it I gained interest in the topic. This may possibly be a contender for my in-depth project.

Lead

 * Guiding questions

The lead clearly defines what the Flehman response is, and mentions a possible reason for why the behaviour occurs. It also briefly discusses on the biological aspects of the behaviour, not overly in depth but just enough to understand before they do fully explain it later in the content. Everything mentioned in the lead is further discussed in the content. It is concise and a good introduction for the topic. Although, the lead does not have one citation and nothing mentioned can be considered common knowledge, therefor it is likely plagiarized.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?


 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

 * Guiding questions

The articles content is relevant to the topic, nothing seems out of place or unnecessary. Based on the dates of the references, the dates range from 1813-2014, so it is fairly up to date with the exception of the origin of the behaviour. The Similar Functions section could be furthered discussed, the author mentions a new idea without discussing it further. It could belong if there was further evaluation on the area.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

The article is neutral, the author does not favour one specific reason for the behaviour and mentions multiple. However, they do clarify one reason mores than the others. This may be because there is more research that focuses on that possible reason versus the others. The article is very scientific so theres not much opportunity to persuade readers in comparison to articles that discuss opinionated pieces.


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions

The referencing in this article is very poor. The author provides very detailed explanations, most of which have no citations with them. They write entire paragraphs more than once without any referencing. The sources provided are mostly recent (2012-1014), and are reliable sources as they are mostly all scientific articles. After checking a few links, most of them required purchasing or an account to view them so I was unable to fully see the articles. The author also changed the formatting of some of the references, most of them were APA but some were MLA formatted.


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions

The article is well written, I did not notice any grammatical errors. The transitioning between content was clear. The lack of in text citations was alarming so it was hard to focus on the content without that to strengthen the information, anything I was reading may or may not have been true or have a scientific reasoning to back it up.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions

The article did include images, they were great aid in understanding the behaviour. Without the images I may not have fully understood which behaviour the definition was discussing. There is an image that does not really belong based on the behaviour those, it is of a tiger with it's tongue out which truly does not fit the behaviours definition. There are a few images which lack proper citations, for example one images permission regulations was "mine", this does not seem to follow Wikipedias copyright regulations. The images are attention grabbing so I would say they are laid out appealingly. However, an image of the brain areas when discussing those would have been helpful and informational to include.


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions

Many of the discussions are in favour of things I have mentioned above, such as the tiger image not belonging and the lack of information provided in the Similar Function content. The article is rated C-class and has low importance on the Wikiproject Animals scale. I expected that wikipedia would have picked up on the lack of proper in text citations based on our class discussion, and this article has been in existence since 2004 and last edited this month.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions

The articles current ranking is C-class, which I would rank it lower considering the lack of in-text citations. So by fixing that, the article could be strengthened. As well as further discussing the similar functions content, and including more biological images besides the images of animals doing the behaviour. Some strengths of the article are how descriptive the author is in discussing the biological aspects of where the behaviour is initiated in the brain. I would assess this article to be somewhat-developed, its well written and some areas are very developed with a few underdeveloped areas; and the lack of in text citations needs to be fixed.


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: